


How to Kill a Living Thing

by hedgerowhag



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, and Hux's inability to chill, did i mention ghost orgies?, featuring: Kylo's lack of self preservation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-01 08:33:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8617027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedgerowhag/pseuds/hedgerowhag
Summary: It starts like any other horror movie: a young man moves into a strange old house full of relics of the past and becomes haunted by some strange entity. However, Ren doesn't find the monster that he expects.-- “I’m telling you, the neighbours will call the police the moment they see me in the house,” Ren grumbles against the faux leather that lines the inside of the car door.“My dear Benjamin, stop arguing and just relax.” Tahani tucks aside the stray pieces of her black hair into the beginning of the braid that she could wrap around her neck twice with ease. “I’m doing you a favour; you have nowhere to live and I’m giving your accommodation for free. Just think: A lake house to yourself for an entire week. A mansion.”





	1. Tuesday (Prologue)

The suburban houses disappear in the side view mirror, distorted by the curve of the glass. White picket fences flicker in the spots of sunlight that fall through the tree canopies. Like candy in glass jars the glossy new SUVs glitter, presented with grandeur on the driveways of million dollar houses.

The windows of the rickety second-hand pickup truck have been rolled down to the frame but some of the glass still pokes out, jabbing into Ren’s cheek as he sits slumped in the passenger seat. His hair is caught in the wind, raked back from his forehead.

“I’m telling you, the neighbours will call the police the moment they see me in the house,” Ren grumbles against the faux leather that lines the inside of the car door.

“Nah, they won’t.” Tahani slaps Ren on the shoulder, her eyes behind the mirrored shades remain fixed on the road. “Don’t be an idiot. Besides, nobody even goes to that end of the lake. It’s private property of the house.”

Ren glares at Tahani. “Are you sure?”

“My dear Benjamin, stop arguing and just relax.” Tahani tucks aside the stray pieces of her black hair into the beginning of the braid that she could wrap around her neck twice with ease. “I’m doing you a favour; you have nowhere to live and I’m giving your accommodation for free. Just think: A lake house to yourself for an entire week. A _mansion_.”

“You could just let me live with you.”

“Hmm. I could, but you would get in the way.”

“College has changed you.”

“Well, I want to get a well payed job and to be honest, the prospect of making it with the Knights is not filling me with much confidence,” Tahani says tersely and that much is true.

While Ren and the group which has been affectionately titled as his “Knights” were teenagers being part of a ragtag band was a source of amusement. They spent time playing bullshit music without the greater worry of responsibilities, dreaming up of some version of tomorrow where they are millionaires.

But they grew up and were forced to move out of their childhood homes, get jobs, go to college and the time they used to spend on music became sparser and sparser.

Recently, it began to seem like Ren is the only one who still believes in their daydream. It’s the reason why he has never considered pursuing further education despite his parents shoving him toward the decision – bribing him with glossy pamphlets and inspirational stories.

“Is this why you are locking me up in some isolated lake house?” Ren glances at Tahani, settling back as comfortably as he can in the cramped space of the truck after sleeping almost the entire ride. “So that I come up with some genius plan that will make us money?”

“Fuck,” Tahani laughs. “You caught me.”

The houses disappear behind the tall oaks and the tarmac dissolves into gravel that crunches under the wheels of the juddering truck. Ren vaguely wonders how his instruments will survive the ride.

The ground begins to slope as the road turns off left, weaving down between the trees. Glimmers of blue peek through the pines and oaks, winking like sapphires. The truck turns yet another corner and suddenly the rows of trees part, opening onto a gravel yard.

Blinking the last of sleep from his eyes, Ren sits up straight as he tries to glance up through the windshield at the looming shadow of the house – restricted by the tightening loop of the seatbelt. It’s a red brick mansion with white accents that line the tall windows and pillars that raises the overhang of the porch above the wide berth of the patio.

The truck halts in the yard that has been dominated by an unkempt fountain standing at the centre of the gravel circle. Ren is still staring at the house when Tahani gets out of the car. The thump of the door shakes Ren out of his daze.

“Your grandmother lives _here_?” Ren says in dumb disbelief as he gets out of the car. “ _Alone_?” He can hardly understand how could one person look after an entire house like that. There must be more guest rooms and lounges than anyone knows what to do with.

“Mhmm,” Tahani hums in confirmation. “That’s white people for you, right? Mom always asked dad if granny wouldn’t prefer to live with us to help her manage health problems. It’s not like we don’t have the space. But he always reassured us that she likes it this way.” Tahani sighs and reaches for the bags that have been thrown into the back of the truck. “Odd woman. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised that she is hell bent to get back on her feet right after her surgery.”

Ren looks dubiously at the luxurious sprawl of the built-on sunroom and the stretch of the patio behind it that falls onto the lawn to look out onto the glittering water of the lake under the line of the dock. It’s not an unpleasant house by any measure, but it’s just that it feels impersonal – like a show horse with red ribbons tacked on.

Reaching out to help Tahani lower the instrument cases beside the truck, Ren asks, “Do you know who got this house built?”

Tahani smirks up at Ren. “Do you want a creepy for the full horror movie set up?”

“No,” Ren quickly says. And then adds, curiously, “Is there one?”

Slinging one the duffle bags over her shoulder and taking the packed groceries into her free hand, Tahani shrugs. “Not really. Some millionaire had a pretentious kid who wanted a get-away house. He died and there was no one to inherit it so it just went on the market. Something about it must have been putting people off and the price gradually dropped.”

Ren can imagine why. It looks more like a dollhouse, not something anyone would like to raise their children in or lived out till old age. But it’s no use for anything other than that – considering how large the house is.

“Come to think of it,” Tahani considers. “I granny showed me the attic when I was little. There were chests filled with old stuff that goes back to the twenties when the original owner lived here. I think there were even photos.” She looks slyly at Ren who has picked up the case for his acoustic bass guitar. “I wouldn’t be wrong to guess that you want to see them.”

Ren grins back. “You read my mind.”

With the instrument cases and stuffed backpacks in hand, Ren follows Tahani into the mansion.

Though the condition of the house is maintained, meticulously cleaned and repaired, there is no way of hiding the age; the settled wood of the floor creaks and the doors persist to swing open on their own if not closed. It is blatant that the house has been built for an entirely different era with the widths of the doors and the heights of the ceilings that span for the grandeur of crystal chandeliers.

In the lounge Tahani drops the bags by the couches that look as if they are the antiques that came with the house. Ren looks out onto the lawn that is visible through the wide concave window. Among the flower beds that have become vegetable gardens there are stone ornaments that have been eroded by the overgrown lichen and the weather.

“Come on,” says Tahani, “I’ll show you the attic before I have to leave.”

She opens the windows to air the spacious rooms as she leads Ren upstairs where the guest rooms hide behind tall white doors. On the landing, Tahani has to bring out a chair from one of the rooms to open the hatch into the attic and lower down the ladder.

Cool air blows down from the dark hollow of the attic room onto the brightly lit space of the landing where the walls are painted gentle pastels and whites. The metal stairs shudder under Tahani’s steps as she begins to climb.

“Are you sure this isn’t a horror movie set?” Ren asks when Tahani disappears in the dark. He shivers in the breeze of the chill that pours down.

“It will be if you mess anything up in here.” Tahani appears from the open hatch of the attic, her braid swinging down like a lifeline. “Are you coming up?”

“Yeah, yeah. Hold up.” Ren begins to climb using his hands and feet like a particularly ungraceful ape. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”

“You are _twenty-five_.”

When Ren manages to claw his way onto the attic floor, Tahani is already rummaging through the stacked boxes and chest that have been shoved into a corner of the room under strips of white linens.

In here, the skeletal interior of the house’s structure is visible: the beams and supports of aged dark timber are stark in the pillars of falling light where the dust motes dance and fall onto the white covers of fabric that sit on the boxes like ghosts. Bared to the air from beneath the sheets are leather chests lined with rivets that have dulled with age.

Roughly closing a ravaged chest, Tahani squats in front of the next one. The latch creaks as she pries it up and pushes open the lid.

“This all came with the house?” Ren asks as he leans over Tahani to take a better look at the contents of the chest. She puts it aside and pulls forward a packing box.

“Yeah, nobody wanted it and it was just left behind. No one ever threw it out. I have no idea why – it’s all just flimsy keep-sakes,” Tahani mutters as she begins to browse through tightly packed papers and folders. “Oh, I think this is it.” She lifts the object from where it has been jammed inside a cardboard box beside the binders.

It’s a small ornate chest of dark wood and carved ivory on the lid. It has a depth but it is longer than broad, large enough for the black and white photograph prints on card that it contains. Tahani flips through the photographs without giving Ren a chance to look at them.

“Here,” offers Tahani.

Ren takes the photo that she holds out. He recognises the lounge downstairs where he left everything that he owns to his name. The wallpaper is a little different and there are paintings on the walls. The furniture is almost identical, except it has been repositioned and there are extra additions loitering here and there along with leather bounds books that lie on the coffee table. There is a maid facing away from the camera as she sets down a tea set. The is almost like it is today: sunny and bright.

Tahani slips another photograph into Ren’s hand. This time, it’s of the pier reaching out into the lake from the back of the house. There are three men and woman standing over the water, wearing swimsuits and laughing as they hold onto each other’s shoulders. One of the men has a lopsided tangle of flowers in his hair, another wears a tie across his forehead, the woman is holding a bottle of champagne, her blond-white hair is as bright as her smile.

“Is one of these people the owner?” Ren asks. There is such an off sense of life in the picture of these four people Ren can hardly look away.

Tahani sits up on her knees and inspects the photo. “Hmm… No, I don’t think so. I mean, I vaguely remember what gran showed me, but—” She bows over the ornate box once more and lifts up another photograph, slightly more withered and printed onto thicker card. “There he is.”

Yellowed and browned by age, the photo shows a man dressed in a severe black suit, hands held behind his back, showing the fine cut of his clothing as he stands in front of a doorway that looks the way the high school principal’s office felt. His face is grim, shadowed by a moustache that makes him look like some sort of an absurd movie villain.

Beside him, like an echo, stands a younger man, slight of building and appearing at unconcerned ease. He is looking at the camera as if he knows where the photographer’s wife has been the night before. Maybe it’s the smirk on his young, cocky face and the cold, sly look in his eyes that makes him seem as if he has more purpose that he possesses.

Putting the two and two together, Ren laughs. “Wow, I can really imagine this snot getting his multimillionaire daddy to build him a fancy house.”

Suddenly, Tahani’s phone begins to buzz. She pulls it out, almost dropping it onto the floor, and flicks on the screen.

“Ah shit,” she curses. “I must’ve only just gotten into signal range. A lecture has been rescheduled and it’s within an hour.” Tahani gets off her knees and dusts off her jeans. “I really have to go.”

“Sure,” says Ren, still looking at the photo.

“I will come back on Thursday to drop you off at the garage,” Tahani tells him as she quickly makes it for the stairs. “If anything happens, try and find signal to call me, or just use the house phone.”

“Alright,” Ren agrees. He drops the photo back into the small chest and follows Tahani down onto the landing – she is already running toward the staircase to the hallway, barely allowing Ren to catch up.

“If worst comes to worst,” Tahani calls over her shoulder as she pauses at the front door, “Like your food runs out—”

“I’ll start catching fish in the lake,” Ren cuts in as his feet squeak to a halt behind Tahani.

The young woman turns and frowns at Ren with an incredulous look. “I was going to say call a taxi and get back to the city. But, whatever works for you, I guess.”

Ren shrugs. “Yeah, you’ll come back and find me making spears with rocks. Maybe I’ll even befriend some of the local wildlife.”

Tahani’s grimace dissolves into a fond smirk. “You idiot.” She stands up on her tiptoes and wraps her arms around Ren’s shoulders.

Ren thinks back to the time in middle school when he and Tahani were almost the same height, when his arms were weedy enough to snap in a breeze. Now, it would take nothing for him to pick the girl up off the floor if he didn’t know that he would get strangled for doing so.

“Oh, one more thing,” Tahani perks up as she pushes back from Ren. “There is no internet connection; Gran says it’s bad for your health. I guess she is sort of right.” Tahani pats Ren on his shoulders. “I’ll see you in two days.”

 

 


	2. Wednesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [┬┴┬┴┤](https://play.spotify.com/user/blessedbytheash/playlist/5MOGblsr99IfL98716pXWX)[ ͜ʖ ͡°)](http://beeeeebeeee.tumblr.com/) [├┬┴┬┴](http://abookishnotion.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/how-to-kill-living-thing.html)

It has been raining since midnight and by Wednesday afternoon there are puddles underneath the patio, pinpricked by the constant raindrops. Ren had planned on going out to look at the lake, but at this rate it won’t be any different if he leant out of a bedroom window to look at the gravel yard where a rival lake is growing steadily

There is no hope of catching signal even though Ren had wandered all over the house trying to find even the bleep of a bar. He had planned to call the friend of a friend (of a friend) who had promised to pull some strings and get Ren a deal on a cheap apartment. A week before Ren’s old contract ended, they told him they would call him within five days. That was two weeks ago, and, so far there has been persistent silence as Ren spends nights on the strangers’ couches.

With paranoia stepping into the place rationality, Ren is too afraid to use the house phone having somehow convinced himself that the neighbours will figure out that a homeless squatter has moved into the house.

Plans ruined, Ren has nothing to do but lie on the couches in the downstairs living room and listen to the rain hit the windows.

 _Pit pat, patter patter patter_.

Truly, Ren should count himself lucky; having nowhere else to live, more or less homeless, he has been offered to stay in this house for free. No. In this  _mansion_. At the end of the month he has a job waiting: a restaurant vacancy as a waiter. All Ren has to do it kick back, keep an eye on the phone for signal and make one call.

It’s a perfect opportunity to make time for music.

Ren looks across from the couch to the acoustic bass guitar that lies on the coffee table, covered in sticky candy wrappers. With a groan, Ren’s head flops back down onto the hard cushioning.

“Fucking first world problems,” Ren mutters and turns over in a foetal position, facing the back of the couch.

The day before, Ren found a guest bedroom that looked like it was being prepared for a funeral, ripped the white linens off the furniture, opened the window and unpacked best he could. Afterward, he set about poking through the house. 

Deciding that there can’t be any harm in it, Ren peeked in (for the week absent) Claire Edwards’ room. He found nothing but a bedroom that is the embodiment of stale bread with washed out mint green and baby pink florals and lace trims. After having a quick glance Ren left and inspected the other bedrooms and lounges and what perhaps was once a large office. He found no secret hallways or concealed rooms.

It appears that after changing residents for decades the house has been stripped of it personality, leaving behind an antique shell and some furniture that is disjointed from what people have been trying to make the house into. The only nook that still contains the lingering residue of the past is the attic where the stacked boxes and chests of useless papers and trinkets have been dumped.

That’s where Ren found himself the previous day, sitting in the failing light as he searched with glazed eyes through the dusty boxes. He leafed through the papers, stack after stack of information that made next to no sense to him: lists of names and checklists, confidential letters with strings of formal introductions before blocks of blacked out writing consume the page.

Ren returned to the box of wood and ivory that contained photographs that were shown to him by Tahani. Ren continued to shuffle through them, pausing to figure out which part of the house was caught in the image. It was different back then, more cluttered and vibrant through there wasn’t any colour on the pictures to prove it.

There are photographs of the neighbourhood. The lake house used to be secluded by the wood until the other houses gravitated toward it and set their fences on its borders.

There were photographs of cheerful young people posing next to cars or in the water of the lake in then-fashionable swimsuits. Some of the images were more intimate, showing the residents or guests amid activity, sometimes lounging on the furniture that Ren recognised or fussing around a dinner party table underneath a glittering chandelier, their young faces forever frozen in laughter.

At the end of the stacked photographs, there was an envelope. It was tattered from time and softened at the edges, stained with faint yellow water marks. Feeling the card inside, Ren picked it up and pulled out the contents. As he did so, something else slipped out of the envelope and fell to the floor.

When Ren looked down he saw a small key shining in the light that poured through the high window of the attic. Beaming with curiosity, he picked it up and inspected it. The key appeared small enough to be a doll’s accessory and Ren knew he would find the lock with ease.

It didn’t take long.

Pulling aside dusty fabric that covered storage boxes, Ren found an unmarked one that contained flimsy books, lighter cases, glasses with dusty lenses and a small wooden chest. It was smooth and understated, cut neatly from polished dark timber. The lock was almost invisible until Ren felt the surface of the box and his fingertips bumped over the small indentation.

Ren stood from where he crouched on the floor and held the box under the direct light of the window. He pressed the key into the lock. It fitted perfectly.

Though the tiny key was fiddly in Ren’s large hands, he managed to turn it and the lid of the box popped open. With the key lodged in the lock, Ren pushed the lid up.

Stacked neatly inside the box and tied with a frail pale pink ribbon was a block of photographs. They appeared to be in better condition than the others – perhaps less handled. It was Ren’s unquenched curiosity that made him pull the photographs out of the box. They were covered with cut pieces of card on either side, keeping them safe from the harsh rays of light.

Ren pulled the ribbon apart. The first piece of card fell to the ground. Ren’s face fell with confusion.

Pictured on the first photograph was a couple – two women – sat in an armchair underneath a window. Both naked, one on the other’s lap, hands tangled over each other’s bodies as they kissed. It was the same window as the one of the living room downstairs.

Ren flipped the photograph. The one below it showed a lewd scene: a young woman sat astride a man on a bed, the curve of her back shadowed, hands resting on the knees that kept her mounted. Neither of their faces visible.

Another scene. A young man with his hands tied, being kissed by a woman and another man. They held him in place, fingers denting his flesh.

Another scene. Masquerade masks. Straps. Swaths of transparent fabrics that flashed glances of skin as Ren shoved the photographs to the back of the stack.

The new image that caught Ren gaping like a comatose fish.

Naked on the grass lied a young man, surrounded by bodies in various degrees of dress. His wrists and ankles had been tied and held down by hands to stop him from gaining modesty. The pale skin of his skinny arched chest and taut belly glistened with fluids like beaded pearls. A stranger’s hand had covered the man’s lips while the peeking tongue licked at the wet fingertips as cold, sly eyes stared at the photographer.

Ren swallowed heavily – transfixed. He watched with numb detachment as his thumb traced over the soft contours and the wet shine of the man’s body that became half hidden by the figures leaning over him.

Something clicked in Ren’s mind and he frantically shoved the photographs back inside the box, failing to latch it. The ribbon and the key lied abandoned haphazardly on the floor as Ren ran from the attic.

Ren tries not to think about the photographs as he lies on the couch. There is a sickening gut feeling that he had shoved his long nose where he shouldn’t have; those things are private, not his to inspect like artefacts in a museum. But then again… There is no one to tell him not to touch them.

Burying himself in thoughts of anything but that box which is lying on the attic floor amid scattered photographs, Ren begins to doze. Open mouthed, his face is pressed against his arm, drooling as he snores. Around him, the house groans and creeks as it settles under the cool summer shower that continues to flood the drain pipes.

Smacking his lips together, Ren flops over on the couch. The movement shoves the mobile phone that that was pressed against Ren’s back toward the edge of the seat cushions. He wriggles, trying to get comfortable. It only takes the little budge for him to knock the phone onto the floor.

The clatter of plastic and glass yanks Ren out of his doze. He scrambles to reach the phone he moment he realises what has happened. On his hands and knees Ren crawls to retrieve the phone from where it has slid underneath the coffee table. He sits on the floor, pawing at it, checking the casing for damage.

Blessedly, only the corner has been chipped and a slight dent has appeared on the upper left edge. Just another small addition to the mess of scratches and scuffs.

Ren sinks to the floor against the couch in relief and realises that the rain has stopped. Water is dripping down onto the patio and the birds have begun to squabble and sing again. But their music is not alone.

Ren covers his ears. Silence. He removes his hands. The sound returns. Yeah, it’s still there – that odd trill. He squints down at his phone to check is someone is calling him.

No. His phone is as silent as it has ever been. There isn’t a bar of signal.

It is, in fact, music that Ren is hearing from within the house.

Ren stands on his shaky legs and places his phone down on the couch. He walks toward the door that leads from the living room into the hallway. The music becomes clearer. He can hear the individual notes of the instruments, pitching in and out of crackled rhythm.

Dread washes over Ren like cold water as he looks up at the staircase with finely polished steps and curving handrailing. At the top of the landing all doors are closed, white and silent. Only the attic hatch is open, the black maw like a smudge of charcoal on the white ceiling.

Ren stumbles back into the threshold of the living room when a fine note of a trombone picks up in the air, pouring down the stairs. Perhaps he should call the police and report a break in. But he is already enough of an invader.

Who else— No. By the time Tahani would get here he would already be dead.

No. That’s stupid.

Ren swallows down his paranoia and walks up toward the bottom of the staircase. His first step feels as if it is weighed down by stone, but one foot after the other, Ren climbs the stairs in a half dazed dream. He tries not to think of music growing in volume as the distance shortens, or the black hollow of the attic watching from above. A cymbal rattles and Ren trips over the last step.

Standing on the landing in front of the parade of the doors, Ren looks at the steel rungs of the ladder that is swallowed by the black of the attic. The music crackles and bobs, the lyrics melt in and out of the echoes of the ringing instruments.

Ren’s hands cover the rails of the ladder as he makes the first step. The metal squeaks and Ren clenches his teeth.

The instruments are lulled into a tamed silence as the woman’s voice weaves into a dance. The sound crackles just as the trombone comes to dominate once more. Ren peeks over the border of the hatch into the darkness of the attic.

Grey evening light falls sluggishly through the window, showing the boxes covered in swaths of fabric and films of dust that sit inside the room. There are no murderers or robbers, just a gramophone beneath the window. The pin bobs as the record turns and a song falls from the horn.

Ren pushes himself up into the room, wide eyes on the spinning disc that glistens under the light like an oil slick. Hunched, feet light on the floor, Ren creeps toward the gramophone. Clean and shining as if new, the instrument has never been there before.

The music changes to something that requires the slow sway of hips as couples join hands and shift their feet across the floor in a lazy tandem. Ren blinks and looks away from the gramophone and its proud sprawl to see a small object lying before it, almost unnoticeable on the floor that has become dominated by the large instrument.

Polished like a river stone, a small dark box sits. A tiny key glints on the lid.

Ren sucks in a sharp breath. He can feel hairs rising on the back of his neck.

A kick sends the disc from underneath the needle flying to a wall. It shatters. But Ren does not hear the crack as he tumbles down the stairs and scrambles to shove the ladder up and shut the hatch.

The lock clicks in place.

That night Ren spends in the sunroom. He doesn’t sleep.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> promise there will be Fun real soon. i'll try my best to update every wednesday/thursday


	3. Thursday

On Thursday morning Ren is sitting on the front steps of the house when Tahani’s truck pulls into the yard. She opens the door for him and he crawls inside.

They stop for coffee before going to the garage. Ren stays inside the car, dozing with his cheek pressed against the glass while Tahani picks up the orders. He hopes that she didn’t notice the bruises under his eyes though maybe she put them down to the usual causes.

Ren didn’t mention the house and Tahani didn’t ask, instead telling him about Nik and Alex (or Nikita and Alexandra to the people who they are prosecuting for poaching endangered species) coming back from China. They are planning on recording demos again when the others find time off work.

The car door opens and Tahani is back in the driver’s seat. She passes Ren his coffee and places her own in the cup holder.

The engine starts and Ren doesn’t notice the coffee burning his tongue. He chokes on the drink when the radio crackles awake.

Tahani keeps adjusting the stations as she pulls out of the near empty parking lot and onto the road. The sun falls between the trees and hits the hot tarmac.

The words bubble out before Ren can rein them back. “Does your grandmother own a gramophone?”

Tahani looks at Ren from under the tilt of her baseball cap. “Uh, yeah. She found one in the house when she moved in. It never worked so she threw it out,” Tahani explains, watching the road. “How come?”

The cup squeaks in Ren’s grip as his fingers tighten. “I found some records in the attic while I was looking around. Thought I could listen to them.”

Tahani laughs. “You listening to twenties jazz and swing or whatever? Now that’s a picture.”

“Vinyls reminds me of my granddad.” Ren shrugs. “I thought I saw some titles I recognised from his collection.” That much is true, Ren’s grandfather did love jazz, listened to it right until he died. It’s just that the attic has no records.

“I thought he was born in the forties.”

“He liked to listen to real jazz.”

Tahani nods. “I hope you haven’t been digging too much in the attic.” The indicator blinks as she stops at a red light on a suburban cross road. There is no traffic.

Ren hums. The coffee is lukewarm in his mouth.

“Granny told me not to spend too much time there.” The red turns orange, green, and the truck nudges off the sun heated tarmac. “She said that there are some things up there that should be left alone. You know, like, private stuff.”

Choking down the lump in his throat, Ren nods. He tries not to think of the polished case of the gramophone sitting on the floor under the bleak light as the vinyl disk bobs and turns. “Sure,” he says.

They talk in smatterings about subjects that Ren is only half aware of. He feels like his limbs have been numbed with anaesthesia while his mind hurtles through thoughts that deafen Tahani’s words and the hum of the car engine.

There is tapping on Ren’s knee and he thinks that it’s Tahani trying to get his attention. But when he looks down he sees that his left hand is shaking, drumming against his leg.

It’s the lack of sleep that makes Ren snap at Tahani when she asks him if he wants her to stay until he has paid for the repairs.

Alone, Ren briskly deals with the mechanics and drags the cracked rear of his sedan out of the garage and onto the road.

The car used to overheat, breaking down at the side of the road every ten minutes until the engine cooled down. It did nothing to help Ren control his anger management problems. That’s why there are dents on the hood. There has never been enough money to fix them, but at least one of the issues has been solved.

Ren drives through the winding suburbs toward the city, trying to ease off the steady hum of irritation sitting under his skin. The sky is beginning to grey in a threat of rain, but it’s warm and humidity clings like oil.

Ren ends up parked beside a 7-Eleven, staring at the signal bar bob up and down on his phone.

The dial sound rings through the car. Only silence answers.

 

The sedan creeps through the street lined with houses underneath the trees that cast shadows in the twilight. Ren digs his nails into the steering wheel to keep himself awake as he follows the time worn road between the oil slick window that glisten with speckles of light.

After being stared out of the parking space of the 7-Eleven by the suspicious cashier, Ren used some of his dwindling money to buy instant noodles and alcohol. One for the headaches and the other for creating the said headaches with the positive side-effect of eliminating paranoia and insomnia.

Ren scowls at the shadow of the lake house at the end of the gravel road. The car rocks as he closes the door and goes to drag the groceries out of the boot.

There is no light inside the house when Ren stumbles through the front door, trying not to look toward the banister of the second floor landing. He trudges off toward the kitchen.

In the grocery store Ren had grabbed bottles at random in the drinks aisle and when he looks into the bags he discovers two brandies and vodka. When Ren takes a closer look at the label, he realises that it’s a cheap off brand that will probably make him blind. Without thinking, or checking if he had actually locked the front door, he cracks the seal of the cap.

The liquid scarcely burns on the way down.

After a second heavy gulp, Ren sighs and stares into the empty kitchen. The curtains waver as a breezes blows into the room.

Outside, the clouds seem to have dispersed and moonlight is falling over the lake and onto the thickets of the tall willows and oaks that surround it. A few birds still chitter and mallards squabble in the water, their shadows barely perceptible on the shallow waves.

Taking another swallow of vodka that burns the back of his throat, Ren replaces the cap and moves to pull the rest of the drinks out of the bags. The bottles are placed by the sink in clear line of sight while plastic pots of noodles perch in a tower beside the surprisingly modern microwave. He makes a makes a mental note to remove all the bottles before he leaves the house on Tuesday morning. Tahani had promised to help Ren make the house look as if he had never been there. But after how he had spoken to her, Ren doubts that she will be as eager to help.

Chucking away the plastic bags, Ren notices that his footsteps are tangling; every moment threatens to be the one that makes him fall against the sharp edge of a counter as he stumbles from the kitchen. Having eaten nothing since morning, Ren’s stomach is beginning to pinch and the alcohol is working too quickly for him to coordinate a path toward the couches in the sunroom.

Flushed from the sudden rush of heat from below his collar, Ren walks sluggishly through the dark, catching himself against the walls for support. The dining room chairs screech when Ren stumbles into them, struggling to force his legs to move.

A click comes from the hallway.

Ren trips over his feet, yanking the table cloth when he falls against the curved edge of the slab of timber. Ren’s heart is thumping as if he is being choked of air.

The lock of the front door clicks again and Ren sees the handle turn from the threshold between the dining room and the lounge. The hinges squeak when the door opens in a wide arc.

A strangled, petrified moan catches in Ren’s throat when a figure steps through the door into the hallway. The moonlight disappears behind the door and Ren can no longer see what has entered the house.

Footsteps clack against the hardwood floorboards. A switch is flicked in the dark and a small ember sparks on the ceiling of the hallway, budding into a full bloom of light.

Unfamiliar frames of paintings glint under the slowly growing luminescence of the lamp, an oval mirror hangs beside a coat rack weighed by long garments. A burgundy carpet lines the floor, the walls are masked with cream pinstriped wallpaper.

Dark leather shoes move across the carpet with leisurely steps in the unfamiliar hallway. A suit jacket is flipped off a narrow shoulder and held in the crook of the arm as a man dressed in dark brown slacks and a white shirt leans toward the oval mirror. The man’s tie has been removed from his neck and is fisted in one hand. He adjusts his combed ginger hair in the mirror’s reflection, the high colour on the pale cheeks of his young face glows. A silver cigarette case glints from the back pocket of his trousers.

Leaning back, the man licks his red lips, the gesture slow and slack, suggesting that he has been drinking. The man draws his wandering fingertips over his reddened lower lip in a movement that is all too familiar for Ren and causes him to suck in a sharp breath.

The sound is too loud in the night cloaked house and the red-haired man turns around, stark in the light of the hallway. His startled pale eyes search the living room.

“Annie? Are you still here?” he asks the silence.

Seconds bear by. The fear eases off his shoulders and the man disappears from the hallway. His footsteps ascend the staircase. The light extinguishes.

Pale and shaking, Ren appears form behind the wall of the dining room and looks to the hallway. Finding it empty, he releases a wheezing breath. Stumbling, he comes from his hiding and walks into the centre of the lounge.

Through the darkness, Ren can see that the hallway is no different to how it was the first time he followed Tahani through the door. When he walks into the space where the man previously stood and reaches forward into the shadows where the moonlight doesn’t touch. Ren can’t feel the coat rack or the mirror.

A light switch clicks upstairs and Ren sees an orange glow pouring down the staircase, illuminating wallpaper that he had never seen before in the house.

Gripping the banister, feeling the soothing familiarity of the timber beneath his hand, Ren walks up the stairs. One step at a time, he makes the slow journey toward the landing where the wash of light waits for him.

At the top of the stairs, Ren looks down the corridor and sees an open room that casts the light over the closed dark timber doors with golden handles. He can hear feet moving across carpet, papers shuffling and cloth rustling. Ren reassures himself that it’s just a hallucination of which there is no danger pursuing.

He follows the corridor toward the door that gapes into the room where there once was a desolate office hidden under swaths of white linen. Now, it seems like decades have been pulled away with the fabric.

A lamp in a shade of green like jade hangs from the ceiling, spilling its light down into the room. A vase filled with white roses stands on the sill beside book and files. A desk of rich red wood, cluttered with papers and pens under the eye of a desk lamp of fractured glass like petals.

The red-haired man drops aside his jacket on a chair and stands with an expression of deep thought. He is not aware of Ren as he turns a crisp typed page of an open file with the pinch of his fingers.

Photographs stand between the leather hardback tomes on the shelves that cover the walls of the large office and Ren, forgetting himself, leans forward to take a better look. The floor creaks underneath the carpet as Ren sets his foot down.

A gasp. Pale eyes stare at Ren as if a phantom stands in the dark threshold.

The door slams into Ren’s face, stealing the sight of bright orange lit room. It is as if all light has been swallowed, leaving only the cold darkness in its place.

Ren clutches the door handle and twists it. The lock doesn’t give away but Ren only yanks harder, forcing the mechanism until his hands hurt.

Suddenly, the lock gives and Ren falls into the room. Losing his balance, Ren crashes down onto the cardboard boxes that have been shoved under the window.

It takes a moment for his head to stop spinning before Ren manages to cling onto the sill for purchase and scrabble in the dark to push himself back to his feet. Gasping from the fight to open the door, Ren stumbles back into the centre of the desolate office under a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling.

As if wiped away by the light, all memory of the life that occupied the room is gone.

A sound like a whimper of the wind comes from the border of the forest that lies before the house. Ren cautiously leans over the mounds of stored clutter to look out of the window.

There is nothing to see. Perhaps it was just the neighbour’s cat or an escaped dog.

Though his hands are still shaking from the alcohol and adrenaline, Ren is able to steady himself and step back from the window, relying on his own feet.

Moonlight glances across the overgrown lawn as the wind shifts the branches of the tees. A shiver passes over the clearing, brushing through the grass. But instead of touching the tangled mess of the vegetable garden, the breeze hushes past the petals of white roses.

Arranged neatly around the platform of a birdbath, the pale blossoms hold their faces raised to the moonlight. Open, and speckled with crystals of dew.

Ren gapes, waiting for the flowers to disappear within a blink, and doesn’t notice when the door closes behind him.

The handle turns and the lock squeaks.

Ren turns just in time to see a pale face with wide staring eye set in the dark pits of bruises. A red grin splits and his cry is gently hushed.

 

 

 


	4. Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6 chapters to go

By the time Ren breaks out of the room it’s dawn. He falls onto the floor, shaking and on the verge of picking up the house phone calling Tahani to tell her that there is something very very fucking wrong with the house.

He doesn’t look back to see if the roses are still in the garden, showing their ghostly faces to the sunrise. Instead, Ren charges into the kitchen, grabs the bottle of vodka and tips the contents into the sink. Mournfully, he watches the liquid _gulg_ down the drain. That’s a waste of money on hallucinations Ren doesn’t want to revisit.

He pauses at the bottles of brandy. Maybe it was just the vodka.

Ren’s hand slips on the empty glass. He vomits into the sink until there is only bitter, yellow bile pouring from his mouth with thick clumps of saliva.

Afterward, Ren crawls into the sunroom and collapses on a bamboo framed floral print couch. Finding it unbearable to remain conscious any longer, Ren allows the view of the living room twist and blur, vanishing into black.

 

Two sleepless days and an absence of food but for the alcohol that still burns through Ren’s abdomen has taken its toll.

The light falls in lines of orange across the walls, glancing on the framed photographs on the mantel. A vase of wilted flowers hides in the shadows. The lake is half casted in the setting dark, partially illuminated crimson by the descending sun. The circle of the forest is black. Reeds whisper in the creeping wind.

Ren wakes up with a dry mouth, his tongue stuck to the palate. It takes him a moment to peel himself off the couch.

He is no longer nauseous but his head rings with pain when he stumbles into the kitchen. Ren wrings himself free of the sweat drenched clothes, leaving himself standing in a pair of jeans – barefoot. He only has half a mind to stuff everything else into the washing machine before reaching for cereal and eating it dry out of the box.

After wolfing down several handfuls of cornflakes, Ren finds a bowl and dump milk into it before emptying the entirety of the remaining cereal. With the bowl and spoon in hand, Ren slides down onto the kitchen floor.

If he had enough sense Ren would call Tahani and tell her that he is no longer comfortable staying in the house. But there is an itching thought at the back of his mind that tells him he might simply be delusional. It has happened before on several occasions: Delusional manic thoughts had sent Ren plummeting into paranoia and unprovoked rage. After clawing his way back from the ‘down’, he was forced to deal with the damage he could never remember creating.

So if Ren was to call someone to tell them what he has seen in the house, he expects that he would be told to get some meds and sleep it off. Worse, Ren will doubt himself and write everything of as the product of delusion.

Chewing the last mouthful of soggy cereal, Ren dumps the bowl in the sink overhead and climbs to his feet.

The house phone rings like a faint gurgle in the silent house.

Ren stares at the into the dining room. The phone keeps on ringing. He steps through the room and into the lounge toward the phone that hums and chirps atop of a cabinet.

The number is not recognised and the digits run across the narrow blue screen. But Ren knows it from having to dial it on a stranger’s phone after losing his own.

The humming stops. Ren presses the phone to his ear.

“Hello?” an urgent voice asks across the line. “Ren? Are you there?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Ren? Hello? It’s me, Rey.” She seems to lean away from the phone – considering hanging up. But then she whispers, “Please answer.”

It would be easy to just slam down the phone and ignore the guilt later; Ren has done it before. But instead, he says, “Rey?”

There is a breathless sort of laugh of relief. “Ren? Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” He swallows, throat suddenly dry. “Yeah, I’m fine. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Everything’s okay. I was just—”

“How did you get this number?” Ren suddenly asks.

“I—I was worried about you.” Rey sounds flustered, her voice slightly distorted. “I know you don’t have anywhere to live, so I wanted to offer you to stay with me and Finn. I tried to call you but I couldn’t get through. I didn’t know what to do so I asked around. Tahani told me how to get hold of you.”

“Oh.” Ren stares into the empty living room. The light pours blood through the window. He knows that Rey had called him because she thought he had lost it again and it would cost the family to fix his mistakes. It’s always the reason.

“Are you—Are you sure you’re okay? I can help if you need something, Ren.” Rey takes a steadying breath. “Dad will help you too. You know we are always here for you.”

Perhaps Ren is meant to be touched and feel overwhelming gratitude. But all he wants to do is slam the phone down and watch the plastic casing shatter.

“No. I mean—I’m okay. I told you—” The floorboards creak upstairs and a shiver claws down Ren’s back. He hears a muffled noise. Music.

It grows louder.

In the doorway that leads toward the staircase shadows play in the red light.

“Ren?”

He has entirely forgotten that Rey is still on the line.

“I have to go,” Ren says.

He is already pulling the phone away from his ear when Rey calls out, “Ren wait—!”

The connection is broken and Ren is slamming down the phone. He is charging out of the room, swarmed by thoughts of anger and fear. But somewhere, in the delusional haze, it all becomes overwhelmed by curiosity,

Ren is running up the stairs. The music is coming closer, except, it’s origin is not the attic.

On the landing, Ren turns in confusion, looking down both ends of the corridors when he sees the open door of a bedroom. He goes inside.

Ren takes no notice of the silk sheets and the patterned rugs. Nor the pearl, gold and diamond necklaces that have been thrown across the bed, glimmering in the orange spill of sunlight. He doesn’t look at the vanity placed beside the window, cluttered with curious objects.

All Ren can think about is the open doors that leads into the bathroom where music fills every corner. It’s slow, like dripping honey and lazy like the fall of the spilling amber light that hits the soapsuds on the tiles.

Ren halts in the threshold.

Water sloshes over the rim of the antique porcelain bathtub and runs down the sides, gleaming with pearlescent light. A figure drenched in soapy water rises from the shell of the tub. Pale arms fold over one another on the rim. A red smile is offered to Ren. Pale eyes glimmer like candlelight.

Pulled between the urges to run and to come closer, Ren stands frozen as the grinning man brushes his fingers through the red hair that drips with soapy water. The lean expanse of his white chest peeks when he reaches up to comb his hair away. Ren grits his teeth to stop his jaw from dropping down.

Amused, the man leans back in the bath. Watching Ren, he raises his knees from below the water, pink from the heat of the water. “Don’t you want to take a closer look?” he asks.

Ren swallows, blinking away the fuzziness that blurs his vision, and almost falls into the bathroom. His feet slide on the wet tiles as the eyes of the grinning man follow him. Though his features are warm, hair coloured like deep auburn brandy under the sunlight and the apples of his cheeks red, his eyes are pale like two perfect opals.

“Come here,” the man whispers in a sweet voice. He reaches out a hand.

Ren watches in horror as he stumbles forward and reaches back.

Their fingers connect – sold, warm – and Ren is yanked forward. He catches himself on the rim of the bathtub, leaning over the soapy water. There is a hand gripping Ren’s wrist. He tries to wrench it back but the skinny white fingers are stronger than their porcelain appearance suggests.

There is a gentle laugh and Ren is distracted from his need to escape.

A smiling freckled face is peering up at Ren, glowing with the water droplets that burn like jewels in the evening light.

“Aren’t you a fussy one,” the man says giddily.

Ren almost smiles back before the view spins and his is thrown into the bath with inhuman force.

The water is shallow but it sloshes over the sides of the tub as it struggles to accommodate the two men that have been forced inside its porcelain body. Ren braces his hands on either side of the red-head’s shoulders, denim covered knees crushed beside his hips. It takes Ren strength not to slip and fall.

Unfazed by the tight fit, the man coyly raises a leg from the frothing water. Ren flinches when the calf brushes against the dripping denim of his inner thigh. Up along his trembling leg it’s raised and toward his groin where it presses harshly.

Ren sucks in a breath and tries to arch away to avoid contact but the touch follows him and the man’s legs pushes up against Ren’s groin until he is shaking from the feeling. Ren can’t help it when he whimpers and presses down against the knee that is slowly rocking through the fabric of the denim against his cock. The teasing friction has him moving against his will and spreading his legs wider in a silent question for more.

“You like that?” the red-haired man asks with a grin full of teeth.

Ren shivers but says nothing. He is petrified and all at once he wants to let go and crawl over the body below him and give into that sinful smile that promises to eat him whole.

The water that has drenched pieces of Ren’s hair drips down onto the red-head’s cheeks. The droplets glide down his pale skin toward his jaw before falling onto his chest. It’s as if Ren has been yanked forward by strings when he ducks down and licks away the stray drops running down the man’s chest. The skin underneath his tongue is smooth and warm. But most of all, it’s real.

Hands fall over Ren’s shoulders, nails dig into the skin, dragging down when Ren kisses away the water from the man’s neck. There is a laugh when Ren bites and scrapes his teeth over the skin.

“Did I say you could do that?”

Ren pulls back as if struck. The man underneath him raises his brows in question. There is still a smile.

“Hm?”

The hands on Ren’s shoulders tighten to the brink of pain. He tries to pull out of the clutch but he is instantly stopped.

“Did I say you could go?” the man scolds.

A response is not expected of Ren as the support of his knees is wrenched out from beneath him. He tumbles into the porcelain maw of the bath. Water sloshes over Ren, stinging his eyes and pulling his hair as he slips and slides in the belly of porcelain. The water is now no higher than the level of high hips.

Above, the red-head looms. His body is slim and naked – a picture perfect deception of weakness. He drops onto his hands and smirks when Ren flinches; they are nose to nose, sharing the humid air and the man moves in as if to kiss Ren. There is a breath of laughter when Ren scrambles to move away – afraid of being taken advantage of as if he ever had any control over what happens.

Ren’s bent legs are pushed down against the sides of the tub as the man who holds him captive shifts down on his hands and knees. Fascinated by Ren’s half naked body, the man is no longer concerned by his petrified expression.

Reverently, fingertips pass over Ren’s chest and his abdomen, pausing at his groin. Ren struggles under the faint touch, biting his lip. The flat of a spread palm covers the outline of Ren’s dick and pushes down, grinding the denim against him, and he whimpers, sinking down in the tub from the sensation.

As much as Ren hates to admit it, his body is beginning to betray him even as his mind screams for him to run while he falls victim to the teasing touches.

“I can’t wait to get my mouth on you,” the red-head whispers, licking his lips as he grinds the heel of his palm with increased force against Ren’s hardening cock. “You look like you taste sweet.”

Ren flinches when fingers undo the fly of his jeans and dig into the waistband, yanking them down his hips. The wet denim drags the sodden underwear and Ren’s half-hard cock lies against his stomach. Within an instant a warm mouth is on him, biting his hip and sucking bruises while the auburn hair tickles his stomach. With every touch it becomes harder and harder to deny that Ren wants this.

As if it’s for his own pleasure, the red-head reverently drags his red lips over Ren’s cock, nuzzling it and licking it to fullness like it’s made of sugar. The slim fingers lock around the base and dripping ginger hair obscures the view as the soft lips press against the head of Ren’s cock. A wet tongue laps and then, with a smile, the mouth opens around it, swallowing with ease that makes Ren scream.

The tongue is soft, and so, so warm and teeth only just graze as Ren’s dick sinks deeper inside the man’s mouth. Ren moans and his head falls against the side of the tub, no longer resisting when his hips jerk up in search of the man’s touches.

Briefly, the memories of the photographs that Ren found in the attic come to his mind. He wonders how many times this man had done this, how many times had he allowed someone to shove their cock inside his mouth, enjoying it like a candied treat.

The thoughts are thrown away when nails scratch Ren’s hips and he looks down to watch the lean, red-haired man take him inside his mouth, again and again, pulling him closer toward pleasure. Ren almost sobs with the need to come but he is kept on the edge, teased to the brink before being eased back down.

The red-haired man has stopped trying to hold Ren in place; there is spit dripping from his lips as he permits Ren to fuck his mouth until he gags. Ren can see him choke as he eyes screw shut and throat convulses, and Ren would stop if it wasn’t for the moans he hears every time he thrusts too roughly.

The sounds of sloshing water are muffled by whimpers. Rem has one hand buried in the dripping ginger hair, fingers twisted in the locks, while the other grips the rim of the bathtub with white knuckles. He hears no protest when he forces the man down once more before coming into the soft warmth of his throat.

The stranger is kept there until Ren sinks into the porcelain belly of the bathtub. A hand untangles his own fingers from the ginger hair.

Ren is still catching his breath when a warm body covers his. Smiling lips press to the corner of Ren’s mouth, he turns to catch them in a kiss. With a laugh, the stranger bites Ren’s lips and coaxes his mouth open with lazy coyness.

The man’s tongue tastes sharp of salt and Ren pushes up on his elbows to lick away remains of the flavour but a hand of his chest forces his down. Ren resists with a whimper. The man grimaces, his lovely face twisted into an ugly scowl, and shoves Ren down into the bath until his arms give away.

Ren slips and falls into the bath, sloshing the soapsuds that sting his eyes.

Ren feverishly tries to reach those lips again but he is weighed down by water and the hands on his chest that keep him in place.

Has the water been this high before? It covers his chest and Ren struggles to keep his head above the level. Had it—

The air is punched out of his chest when he is forced below the water with a kiss that makes his teeth ache. For a moment, Ren is at a calm until his lungs begin to bubble with fire and his head ring. Ren makes a confused noise, trying to push against the clutch of the man above him.

The pressure does not ease.

The kiss leaves Ren with an aching throat that begs him to open his mouth and swallow the water. The silhouette of the red-haired man is blurred and Ren wants to ask him what he is doing as instinct battles over sense and his legs kick the surface of the water – trying to escape his death.

The water crashes and sprays over the sides of the bathtub as Ren claws at the body above him, forgetting the hysteric need to find the kiss again.

Braced by straddling thigh on his abdomen and the hand on his throat, Ren stares up at his captor through the frothing water. He is confused, terrified. Above him he sees guilt. Pain, perhaps.

Bubbles burst from between Ren’s teeth. He screams through the water “Please! Please!” But it is all silenced by the water that gushes into his throat.

Pale features twist. He can’t bear to look at Ren.

Suddenly, the pressure is gone. In shock, Ren stops his thrashing, watching the shadow ease away as all fight leaves him.

The sound of a crack breaks through the newfound silence.

Water bursts from the bath, splattering the ceiling and the walls. Shards of porcelain clatter over the floor. Ren is thrown across the tiles, coughing, cut by the pieces of the shattered bath.

In the same moment, lights throughout the house flicker and die into darkness. 

 

 

 


	5. Saturday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'll edit thsi again later [(ง°ل͜°)ง](https://play.spotify.com/user/blessedbytheash/playlist/5MOGblsr99IfL98716pXWX)

“Look…” says the electrician after staring at the rows of blown fuses. “I have no idea what you managed to do, but I’ll have to replace all the fuses and check the house for appliances that might’ve tripped this.” The man frowns and looks at Ren. “You sure the house didn’t get struck by lightning?”

Ren shrugs, shoulders almost meeting his ears. “Unless there was a thunderstorm that I just happened not to notice.”

“Don’t fucking get smart with me, kid,” grunts the electrician and takes the flashlight from Ren’s hand. “I’ll be done before evening.”

Ren nods and stumbles out of the basement that was once lit by the blown bare bulb. There is nothing inside but scraps of packing material and the dust that gathered around ghosts of objects.

Ren winces when he walks up the concrete steps; even through the rubber soles of his shoes he can feels the cuts on his feet that he bandaged without light after he crawled from the bathroom.

Ren had woken up at midday on the living room floor to find a trail of congealing blood leading from the kitchen into the lounge. The soles of his bandaged feet were muddy brown and red, blood had seeped through denim at his knees and the scratches on his palms stung. Despite evidence of the damage, the bathtub stood innocently in one piece and the floor had no signs of flooding.

After looking at the basement electric panel in confusion, Ren resigned and drove an hour into the city to get signal and call an electrician. When he arrived, the man clearly didn’t believe that this wasn’t Ren’s fault. But at least he admitted that it will take more than switching the power on and off to fix the issue.

A half-eaten bowl of cooling noodles stands by the kitchen sink as Ren goes through the room. A loose strip of a bandage hangs from the medicine cupboard. Scattered bottles of pills lie across counters where Ren left them after gutting the cupboards to find a roll of bandages.

Ren ignores the mess and goes into the sunroom where he picks up a woollen blanket that he dug out of a closet. He listens to the sounds coming from the basement as he walks toward the staircase.

On the second floor, Ren glances down the corridor of closed rooms and eyes the abandoned office. He wonders if the thing he saw through the doorway is in any way connected to the man that has been luring him. Ren hopes not to find out.

The attic ladder slides out with ease of familiarity. A draft of chilled air pours down as Ren climbs through.

The little dark chest sits by the ravaged packing boxes stuffed full of papers and folders, the ribbon and key thrown aside by Ren’s own hand. The ivory inlaid chest rests with the lid popped open, random photographs poking out.

Throwing the blanket across the floor, Ren sits down and reaches for the ivory box. He picks out a stack of photographs at random and flips through them. Some show the house being built in stages, from the foundation to the roof. There is a boat on the lake, occupied by young people with fishing rods. A garden filled with rose bushes – white judging by the contrasts. It seemed like an idyllic life, filled with luxury and freedom gleaned from isolation.

Ren drops the photographs back inside the box. Cracking his knuckles, he leans onto his hands, arching his chest as his spine pops. The sunlight splays across the floor, bouncing to the ceiling. Ren watches the dust motes rise like fireflies disappearing in the shadows of the rafters.

Leaning forward, Ren reaching over the ivory chest and takes hold of a cardboard packing box, using it to shove the chest aside. Setting the box down in front of him, Ren begins to rifle through the flimsy papers – worn soft with age.

All folders have neat prints indicating years and filing codes. They are identical in their solid black colour and inner cream lining. But from among the cloned rows a folder protrudes. It’s a caramel brown, roughened at the edges, made for carrying under the arm with the extra flaps that makes certain that the papers remain inside. The folder is tied closed by a soft white string.

Ren pulls the folder onto his lap. It’s weighted by the contents and when Ren opens it there is an envelope tucked between the flaps of card. Ren removes the letter and sees initials printed on the yellowed paper: _S.P._

It’s so flat it appears empty until Ren peers inside and finds a single note slip. With his fingertips, Ren pulls the paper from the envelope. The writing is hurried, the pen pressed a little too harshly in the down strokes. Ren reads the scratched words.

> _He was as much of a dear friend to me as he was to you and I am sure that he would have wanted me to help you in any way that I can. However, I don’t believe that what these papers contain will satisfy your search. Please, if you can, leave this be. Let him rest._
> 
> _Your friend,_
> 
> _D.M._

Putting aside the letter, Ren opens the folder.

Held together by rusted clips are the papers of a case file. The victim’s name was Armitage Hux: Died on July 2nd 1927 at the age of twenty-nine, only a week after Brendol Hux’s, his father’s, own death. Though illegitimate, being the only child Mr. A. Hux became the successor to his father’s numerous companies.

Days before his death, Mr. A. Hux was described as erratic and irritable, often having outbursts of spontaneity that often resulted in harmful behaviour. The night before his death, he had several guests amongst whom was the Russian business entrepreneur Slava Phasmova – the last person to see Mr. A. Hux alive. In their interviews, all guests stated that Mr. Hux was anxious for them to leave. He appeared sickly and weak.

At approximately 8 a.m., four days after these events, a neighbour walking beside the lake discovered the body of Mr. A. Hux floating in the shallow water of the lake bank. He had been dead since the night he was last seen by acquaintances.

Known for promiscuous behaviour and scandalous parties, it had been first assumed that the cause of death was overdose from narcotics. No substances were found on the property of Mr. A. Hux’s lake house where he had been residing for the past five years prior his death.

Though there had been suspicion that the cause of death was murder due to Mr. A. Hux’s newly acquired fortune provoking rivalry, there had been no signs of assault. Therefore, a conclusion was drawn on the cause of death being suicide by drowning in the lake beside Mr. A. Hux’s property.

Ren flips through the pages upon pages of reports that had been meticulously typed. Small notes had been scribbled in the margins in pen with strong cursive strokes. There are scraps of newspaper cut-outs shoved between the typed pages, practically crumbling when Ren tries to prise them out.

On the last pages – the conclusive autopsy reports and interviews – there are photographs attached. Carefully, Ren extracts them from the clips.

The first photograph printed on a large glossy page shows the body of a man lying in the shallow water of a lake. His flesh is slightly deformed as if a toy unevenly shoved full of stuffing. His white skin almost glows in the dark water as pale eyes stare ahead at the sky, sunken in the hollows of the sockets. His mouth gapes like a black pit. One hand is thrown over the chest as if to hold together the haphazardly buttoned white shirt.

Another photograph shows Armitage Hux lying on the autopsy table. His eyes are rolled into the back of his skull, face discoloured around the mouth and eye sockets. The skinny shoulders are bunched in rigor mortis, flat chest partially covered with a white sheet, the autopsy cut peeks.

There is a small older photograph tucked amongst the many that had been taken for evidence. It seems to have lost contrast with age, smoothing and softening the lines of Armitage’s face. The photo shows him sat proudly at a table set on the lake pier. Hands are folded on his lap, he looks over the top of his black circular glasses as a light daring smile pulls at his lips that hold a half-smoked cigarette.

He looks happy. He looks like a man who takes life by the scruff and forces it to the ground beneath his pressing knee, milking it for what it’s worth. No wonder whoever went by the initials of S.P. (Slava Phasmova, Ren guesses) wanted to look over the case files.

It’s the man that has been toying with Ren for the past days, there can’t be any mistake.

A vengeful ghost? Ren laughs.

The front door slams and the house shudders.

Dumping the papers onto the floor, Ren crawls to the attic hatch and looks down onto the landing. Ducking down, he can see the hallway and the edge of front door.

“Hello?” Ren calls down.

He gains no answer.

“Hello-o!” Ren shouts again. “He—” He clamps his mouth shut.

Was it always this dark in the house?

Shuffling back into the attic on his knees, Ren glances up at the small window that looks down from between the rafters. The sky is a wash of blues and violent purples. A crescent moon sits on the wisps of the clouds.

“What the—” Ren gasps. How did he manage to lose so much time? Not a moment ago, the bright light of early evening was falling into the attic but now the lake is pulled in the deep shadow of night.

A shiver of low branches by the edge of the garden catches Ren’s eye. Something glimpses in the shadows, too quick for Ren to recognise the shape.

Pressing forward to the window on his toes, Ren narrows his eyes, watching the sweeping branches quiver in echo of what disappeared beneath them. Like bone on black earth, nimble little feet appear from beneath the shadows. Hands brush aside the leaves of the branches and the pale face of a doll appears, smiling.

No. Not a doll. It’s a mask with hollow eyes.

A set of fingers wraps around the arm of the pale creature and giggling they are pulled away.

Ren almost swallows his tongue from fear. He stands at the window, numb, hands beginning to shake where they grasp the sill.

Ren collapses back onto the floor, scrabbling away from the beam of moonlight. He pants, sweat rises across his chilled skin.

No, he can’t give into fear now. Not now.

On his hands and knees, Ren quickly crawls toward the hatch and like a frightened animal he clambers down the steel rungs, scabbed feet aching against the protruding ridges carved for grip.

Ren runs through the dark house, wild eyes catching on shadows, shoes skidding across the carpets. He slams into the back door, hitting his head on the glass as he yanks the handle.

“C’mon, you f’cker—!” Ren shouts, struggling to get the lock to cooperate. He falls forward onto the patio. The door is left gaping as he runs into the chilled summer night.

The sky is a deep velvet purple and the silver of the moon glances over the lake. There is not a breeze that shifts the stillness of the dark.

Ren darts beneath the low branches of the oaks where he saw the figure peer. The soft soil slides under his shoes, causing him to slip in the dark as he grabs onto the surrounding trees for support. Where the moonlight glances through the branches the shadows dance, sending Ren mad as he flinches away from the spots of the pale glow.

Out of breath, Ren drops to his knees as his head reels from nausea. Through the winking dark, he watches every suspicious movement within the grove of trees. When his breathing finally begins to calm, the night falls quiet. All Ren can hear is the lake water lapping on the shore as the birds settle.

Something snags and Ren turns with breath caught in his chest.

Between the trees, many yards ahead, a yellow light peers, no bigger than a pinpricked point.

Ren scrambles to his feet, too afraid to blink in case the vision disappears. On his trembling legs, Ren comes forward, watching the tiny fire come into shape in the glass bulb of a lantern.

Closer and closer he comes, seeing the contours of fingers form on the ring of the lantern. The light of the flame laps upward, softly licking the hollows of a chest clothed in thin white fabric, the smooth curve of a neck and chin, shadowed by swaths of lace.

Not three feet away, Ren stops. Beneath the curve of a white half mask with hollow pits for eyes, the full swells of cheeks rise in a smile full of teeth.

The light extinguishes. The grove falls into darkness.

Innumerable hands grasp Ren. A palm closes over his mouth when he screams, muffling the sound into a choked whimper.

The hands spin him and toss him from owner to owner as they grope him and yank him toward who knows where. Bodies press against Ren’s back and hold his wrists when he tries to force himself away. There is laughter when he tries to yank himself free. Hands paw at his chest and arms, pulling him by the hips. He is helpless and terrified.

The darkness falls away when lanterns blink awake. Pressed against Ren, grinning faces peer from under masquerade masks that are haloed by veils of lace. Like phantoms the figures glow beneath the held lanterns.

Suddenly, the hands abandon Ren’s body and he is left in a circle of curious faces. He almost falls, breathless and unsteady, but arms hold him upright – strong around his waist and chest. Stumbling into the grip, Ren turns and sees a masked face smiling down at him.

Eyes watch Ren from the mask, as pale and dangerous as opium. 

Mesmerised by the flickers of lantern flames in lace veil, Ren does not see the slit of a grin that preludes the choking kiss that is forced onto his lips.

Ren startles, trying to rip away from the body that holds him, but the grip tightens and he is pushed backward. Hands and bodies that Ren cannot see come to caress his chest and hips, fingertips tease his back and thighs that tremble. Sneering lips manipulate Ren into a kiss that makes him gasp and choke on saliva. Disorientated, he can’t help but grasp onto the stranger who has forced themselves on him.

Ren is turned and hands pull him from the mouth that kisses like burning liquor. He gasps as if drowning and before the touch of the kiss can be missed, curious hands come to explore Ren’s body with the murmurs of praise. Masked faces swarm around Ren, blinding him as they spin him to take a better look at their catch.

Suddenly, a solid presence thunks against Ren’s back. He looks up to see the low branches of a tall white poplar tree burning in the lantern light. Hands grasp Ren’s wrists, pinning him against the tree.

Ren sees a rope being brought toward him, thick and coarse, twisted into a noose. He cries for mercy, for help, anything, trying to wrestle out of the binding hands. But the rope is thrown over his head and the knot tightens on his neck.

The cord whistles overhead, disappearing in the branches of the poplar. Something jerks it, flexing the thick rope around Ren’s neck, and he feels the noose slip into a chokehold. Hands freed, Ren scraps his fingers between the rope and his neck, trying to loosen the knot as someone continues to pull, lifting Ren onto his toes.

The gathered whoop and cheer when Ren’s flailing feet can no longer touch the ground. The rope cuts into his fingers when Ren tries to claw it loose and shouts in pain through the chittering laughter of the people below.

Purpled fingers slip from beneath the loop of the noose and a wheezing cry bubbles out of Ren’s mouth when the rope yanks against his neck at full force. White sparks crackle in his eyes, splitting into bruising arrays of colour.

Wheezing and struggling, the instinct to fight is no more than an intrinsic animal urge that Ren cannot let go as he loses focus of the swinging smear of the grove below.

Legs kick wildly in the empty air. The hollow eyed white masks are a blur beneath Ren, the red smiles streaks.

Strength fails when Ren feels his lungs burn and head throb, the rope a deadweight on his neck. His body is going slack, trembling with spasms. He sobs when the last heaves of air rasp through his constricted throat. Eyes blur with tears, black is edging over Ren’s vision. The rope begins to slow its wild swings.

Amongst the masses, one figure stands with their features bared. Pained eyes watch Ren, face creased with guilt.

It’s the last thing Ren sees before he loses consciousness: the burn of red hair beneath the lanterns and pale opium eyes.

Something snaps against the rope. The ground collides against Ren’s back but he feels nothing – lost to sleep far from the world.

 

 

 


	6. Sunday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT IS WEDNESDAY MY DUDES *SCREECHING*

Ren turns to feels the cool side of the sheets, stretching his legs and arms toward the edge of the mattress. Feeling the ache in his joints, Ren sighs into the pillow and presses his face against the cotton. The room smells of grasses that grow on the banks of the lake and roses.

Like a spasm, realisation passes through Ren. He sits up sharply, flinging aside the covers. The bedroom window is open for the breeze passes through and brush past the curtains. Ren forces himself to turn through the paralyzing fear and look at the glass vase standing on the bedside table filled by white roses.

The petals look as fragile as frost playing in the morning light, like they will crumble at the barest touch when Ren reaches out to feel them with his fingertips. But there is no doubt that the white roses are real.

A creak of floorboards in the downstairs lounge pulls Ren from the flowers.

Standing from the bed, Ren realises that he is wearing nothing more than a t-shirt and boxer briefs. He tries not to think about how he ended up this way as he leaves the room that smells of roses.

“Hello?” Ren asks from the second-floor landing, feeling a deep ache in his throat.

Having become deaf to the little voice of self-preservation that yells at Ren from the back of his head, he walks down the staircase of the sun lit house – entirely prepared to be ambushed by the red-head that is either going to suck his dick or kill him (or both).

Peering from behind the doorway of the lounge, Ren is confused to find the room empty. Slowly, he creeps inside, keeping track of the corners until he has reached the dining room. Ren peeks through. Again, it’s empty.

Looking back into the lounge for anything that he might have missed, Ren walks into the dining room, trailing his fingers on the table to guide himself.

Something cold bumps against Ren’s hand. When he looks down there is a silver breakfast tray that has been placed at the head of the table. There are several plates on the tray: one contains buttered toast, another scrambled egg and there is a bowl of fruit slices. Delicately, a knife and fork have been wrapped in a tulip of napkins and placed opposite a glass of orange juice.

“I wasn’t sure what you would prefer—”

Ren turns, screams, and falls against the table.

Appearing as solid as the house itself, a hallucination sits reclined in an armchair in the living room, dressed in a white shirt and cream coloured slacks. He watches Ren as he clings onto the chairs of the dining room table, trying not to collapse onto the floor.

“—Since you rarely ever eat breakfast,” the man continues calmly, swinging one leg over the other. “So, feel free to leave whatever isn’t to your taste.” He vaguely gestures to the tray with a flick of his wrist.

“It’s you,” whispers Ren, still struggling to keep himself upright.

The man looks at Ren from across the room with unbearably innocent confusion. “Pardon?”

“You’re Armitage!” Ren screeches hysterically, pointing at the man.

Undeterred, the stranger, who by no right should be there, says, “I would really prefer that you called me ‘Hux’. Besides, it’s—”

“You tried to fucking kill me!” Ren screams again. “ _Twice_!”

The man, Hux, has at least some decency to look ashamed. “Yes, I realise, and I am trying to apologise.”

Ren swallows down his next scream of profanities. “What?” he asks instead.

Hux nods toward the dining table. “As you see,” he says, “having realised my mistake, I am trying to sincerely apologise and make amends.”

Mouth gaping, Ren looks at the silver tray. He hasn’t eaten properly in days and the food looks unbelievably delicious. At this point, Ren would probably forgive someone for running him over with a car if they offered him a meal.

“Now, if you will excuse me,” says Hux, rising from the armchair with a cigarette in hand that Ren doesn’t remember seeing before. “I have other matters to take care of.” With that, the red-haired man heads for the door that leads into the hallway.

“Hold up!” Ren calls after him, skidding through the living room. “Wait!” But Hux steps into the hallway and the door closes behind him.

Ren slams against the door, unable to stop himself with the bare soles of his feet, and wrings the handle. It gives away instantly. The door opens onto the emptiness of the hallway with no sign of Hux. Ren looks up the stairs, bewildered.

The growl in Ren’s stomach decides for him is he is going to pursue the homicidal apparition or go and try his luck with the apology breakfast.

Ren sits down at the table with his feet crammed underneath his ass and begins to prod at the carefully prepared food. Once he has a slice of buttered toast down, Ren begins to notice a smell of cigarettes coming from the living room. It’s not a pungent smell like someone just breathed out a roll of smoke after clicking on a lighter, but a lingering aroma of nicotine that stains the walls from decades of smoked cigarettes.

It reminds Ren of when his father finally managed to quit smoking but the smell stayed in his clothes for years.

 

After Ren cleared the tray and left the dining room, he noticed orange embers blinking from the fireplace. The charred coils of a rope lied across the logs.

 

As the day passed and Ren cleaned the mess he made of the house, he didn’t see Hux again. At times, he thought that he heard music coming from the attic but it was just a summer shower that grew into a heavy downpour that still patters the windows.

With the odd quiet falling over the house, having no energy left for fear, Ren brought an amp from his car before dragging an electric guitar out of its case – the body a scuffed red with ghosts of worn stickers – and plugging it in.

Sitting with his back against a couch in the living room, the rain as static in the background, Ren stares down into the blank distance of the white walls. It’s a while before Ren decides to pull the guitar closer.

Teeth jammed into the meat of his cheek, Ren slips his fingers across the fretboard, feeling the smooth patches of the worn strings that are stained green by copper residue. Ren fumbles for the pick. The plastic slips from between his sweaty fingertips and Ren pries it from the floor with his nails.

Ren repositions his hands on the guitar and crosses his legs to better support the instrument. He hasn’t played in months, leaving it for later. Now, he has run out of excuses.

At first, it’s awkward; the notes strike out all wrong and Ren slaps his hand over the fretboard to shut it up. With his lips scrunched up, Ren tries again. Gentler.

The liquid music pours into the rooms in the company of the static rain. Ren doesn’t halt the notes, allowing them to waver off into their own silence before slowly changing the position of his fingers on the fretboard.

Slowly, Ren regains his confidence. He watches in hypnotic reverence as his fingers move and metal strings vibrate. A heavy base note echoes through the house, laced by the soft trill of Ren’s fingers slipping down the board and the plucking of the high E string. Ren closes his eyes, listening to the last of the sound dissipate in the room.

The pick drops to the floor and Ren flops against the couch. The rain continues to fall even as the music ends.

“You played rather beautifully.”

Ren jerks forward, hands clamped over the guitar to stop it from falling out of his lap.

Sat on the floorboards in Ren’s mirror image is the man that has been haunting him to the brink of insanity. He is dressed the same way he was this morning except for that his sleeves have been rolled to the elbows and his hair is a little damp, roughened out of the composed state Ren often saw on the photographs.

“Thanks,” Ren mutters, holding the guitar like it will hide him from the man.

Hux smiles and he drops his chin onto the palm of his propped arm.

Trying to keep his calm, Ren asks, “Do you play anything?”

“No.” Hux shakes his head. “I am afraid I am rather useless at such things.”

“You like music though.” Ren wonders how obvious it is that those pale eyes make him uncomfortable.

“Yes… Yes, I do.” Hux sighs, looking toward the sunroom where rain falls through the open doors and splatters on the floor. The downpour hasn’t eased and doesn’t seem to have such intention. “It reminds me of better times, when there used to be parties in this house and I would dance and drink with friends until we could stand no longer.”

“The friends from your photographs?”

“Hmm… Yes.” Hux smirks as if he is reminiscing those captured events. “When work wasn’t calling them away across the country, they would spend the long summer days here.”

“Same friends who watched you hang me from a tree?”

“Pardon?” Hux looks up at Ren, stricken. “No, no,” he reassures. “Those were just memories of when we had our fun. Those people were not real.”

“Not like you,” Ren assumes.

“Quite right.”

Ren nods as he puts aside his guitar. The movement agitates the strings and they release a low hum that melds with the sound of the rain. Ren is surprised that when he turns back, Hux is still sat across from him on the floor, looking as bored as ever.

Remembering the documents in the attic, Ren asks, “Was S.P. your friend?” He tries not to think of the photographs of the bloated corpse.

“Oh, you looked through the report Dopheld brought her, didn’t you?” Hux perks up. “But yes, Phasma was my dearest friend.” He seems happy now, practically beaming at the mention of _Phasma_ (Slava?) “She was determined not to believe that I died by throwing myself in the lake,” he says, tone shifting as words become spat, “like some sad bitch such as myself deserves."

Ren stares. Compared to how elegantly the man spoke before, his words are jarring – like metal on granite.

“You killed yourself?” Ren stutters.

“Quite right,” Hux agrees with a nonchalant nod. “Drank like a man stranded in a desert and drowned like a bag full of kittens.”

“W-Why?”                                           

Hux narrows his eyes. “Don’t you think that is a rather rude question to ask?”

“Sorry?” Ren winces, reminding himself that just because ‘Hux’ is not quite _real_ it doesn’t mean that he can’t hurt Ren if he doesn’t like what he hears.

“Never mind.” Hux waves away Ren’s apology. “Now.” The man unfolds his legs and sits forward - kneeling. “You are my guest and I have been neglecting you.” Hands slap against the floor and Hux crawls forward. “I must be forgetting myself.” Hux grins and Ren is overcome with the urge to get up and run from the room but all he can do it press himself deeper against the couch as Hux prowls toward him on his hands and knees.

“What are you doing?” Ren demands as he scrabbles to put distance between them, bare feet sliding.

“Having fun,” teases Hux.

In a theatric show of seduction, Hux bows his back and raises his ass as he licks his lips and crawls across the last of the space between him and Ren’s spread legs. He places his hands on Ren’s bent knees and presses down, splaying his legs across the floor.

“Hux,” Ren warns. “Hux, sto—” He is silenced by the shock of a sudden weight falling over his lap.

Triumphant, Hus slaps his hand on Ren’s shoulders, nails digging into the meat. “What was that?”

“Stop!” Ren shouts and goes to shove Hux away. But as the man topples down, Ren is grasped by his t-shirt and pulled down on top of Hux, slamming him down onto the floorboards. Legs strap around Ren’s waist, pulling him down into the cradle of Hux’s hips and then, suddenly, he is being flung down under the keen body – pinned by the hands on his chest.

“Don’t be so shy,” Hux pants, grinning with delight in the dim glow of the overcast grey sky. “It’s not as if we haven’t done this before.”

Ren tries throw Hux off him but the figure drops down, stealing air from Ren’s lungs with the weight – another deception of the bird wing fragile limbs.

“I was right, the first time,” whispers Hux against Ren’s ear with a small laugh playing on his lips, “you do taste sweet. And I can’t wait to have you again.” Deaf to Ren’s protests, Hux catches him in a kiss, tasting the moans and whimpers of fear that dissolve into pleasure.

Caught lost in the taste of Ren’s tongue, Hux is flipped onto the floor and held down by his wrists. Shocked, he stares up at Ren’s flushed face. Hux breaks out into hysteric laughter.

“What the fuck are you doing,” mutters Ren as he watches Hux squirm underneath him, convulsing with giggles that shake his chest. “You need to stop.”

“But aren’t we having so much fun?” Hux licks his toothy grin and uses Ren’s grip as leverage to pull himself up and locks his mouth over the protruding bones of Ren’s right wrist. He nibbles at the joints, licking the skin with the flat of his tongue before sucking it until blood begins to rise to the surface.

Ren flinches away with a grimace. It’s the moment he loses focus that a knee slams into his chest, throwing him off balance. Ren is sent tumbling toward the threshold between the living room and dining room where he lies panting from the hit to his sternum.

Ren listens to the clicks of Hux’s shoes on the polished floorboards through the pounding in his ears. When he turns, the glossy tan leather is almost touching his cheek. The feet move in position like the first steps of a dance.

“I always loved fun,” murmurs Hux. A foot is planted on Ren’s chest and he is rocked with faint nudges of the heel. “It rather _irritated_ daddy, would you believe?” It digs into Ren’s ribs as he stares up at the manic smile that splits Hux’s pale face. “Would you like to hear a _fun_ story, Ren? Not quite like one of your horror stories, but I assume it will suffice.”

Ren swallows. Pinned underneath Hux’s sole, he has little choice but to listen.

The foot is swung over Ren’s side and, as if taking his throne, Hux seats himself across Ren’s waist. With an appreciative look in his eyes, Hux brushes his fingers down Ren’s arms, squeezing his biceps and scoring red marks over his forearms. Ren is pliant when Hux locks their hands together, finger to finger, and uses Ren as purchase to lean forward – elbow to the floor, hands raised.

“A very long time ago, before my mommy could marry daddy, she had a terrible cold and passed away before the doctors could do anything – not that they would have,” Hux begins, speaking as if a parent to a child at bedtime. “You see, they already had me so daddy took me in to live with him. Nannies and tutors looked after me. But daddy was never there.”

There is something uncomfortably manic edging into Hux’s voice. It’s like a sudden flood of anger that breaks the gate for everything else that has been reined behind the steel walls. Ren forces himself to remain focused on Hux’s gestures and the pitches in his voice as he speaks; Ren keeps attention for anything that might warn him about another attempt on his life.

“So, what do all children do when they are ignored? They go rotten.” Hux guides their locked hands in an arc of theatric revelation. “As I got older, daddy could no longer keep me quiet. I liked the big city, you see, and being the son of a very rich man who owned all the big companies, I liked to enjoy myself in not very nice places. I caused quite a few scandals, you see.”

Hux leans down and Ren can see his tongue press against the inside of his cheeks as Hux inspects Ren’s face. What is he looking for? A reaction?

“So, daddy decided to pay me off to keep my quiet and tame. He allowed me anything I wanted. So, I had a cosy house built by a lake. It was a lovely house and I invited friends to dance and drink,” Hux murmurs; he doesn’t need to pitch above a whisper for Ren to hear him, Ren only needs to tilt his face to kiss him.

“We liked to enjoy ourselves: we liked to dress up, paint our faces and _fuck_.” Hux rocks down until his ass is pressed against Ren’s groin.

Ren yelps. His feet jerk up, squeaking on the floor as he squirms. “Hux…” Ren mutters in warning.

Hux doesn’t seem to take notice and continues with his ‘story’ as he grinds on Ren. “I made a name for myself as the cities grew around us with the bloom of industry. I made my own money, refusing to depend on daddy again.”

Hux leans so close Ren is sure that he will be kissed, but instead he face is tilted toward the doorway.

“Wha—?” Ren gasps, his face lit by the candlelight that floods the dining room.

The table is set underneath a crystal chandelier. There are vases stuffed full of exotic flowers. Platters are ladened with caviar that drips in thick fatty globs, red lobsters that glisten, sliced fruits arranged like flowers, shrimp, oysters, jellies, sugar dusted puddings slick with bursting molten chocolate. Like jewels, everything shines and the room glows in the hazy light of the candles that soften everything into something that could be mistaken for a dream.

The more Ren looks the more he notices the air trembling – like in summer when the tarmac roads are heated by the sun and the horizon wavers in a drunk dance.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Hux whispers against Ren’s cheek and he only nods, deep in his dazed reverie.

Suddenly, Hux guides Ren to look back toward him with a finger. “But then daddy’s heart gave out because of the drinks.” He shrugs. “Big cities. They do that to you. And everything came to me because daddy hadn’t the time to whelp anyone else.”

Hux sighs, finally seeming a little calmer – if not a little sadder too. “So, one day, when the old man was about to croak, I went to visit him; it was the least I could do. On his death bed, he asked me if I will take charge of all his companies. I said yes: I will fix all his mistakes and make something great of the garbage he had gathered. Then do you know what he did?”

Ren shakes his head, careful not to bump Hux with his nose.

“The great Brendol Hux laughed. Right out laughed. And once he was done, he said that he is glad to see that he had managed to shape his son into what he needed.” Hux slips his hands free of Ren’s, letting them fall to the floor. “I ran from there, not wanting to see my father again. I do hope that he swallowed his own tongue and died. But never mind.” Hux grimaces. His eyes seem to water in the candlelight.

“I realised that he wanted me to grow bitter so that when he died I would be determined to prove myself, show that I am not useless, that he did me wrong by ignoring me for such a long time.” Hux’s head thumps against Ren’s collarbone. His weight is solid and warm. Ren doesn’t know what to do. “That way, he would ensure his legacy – driven on the back of an angry son.”

Hux peeks up through his damp, auburn hair and whispers, “I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of success. So I decided to show people that Brendol Hux’s bastard son is just as much of a sad, desperate bitch as everyone thought I was.”

Speechless, Ren watches Hux sit up, wiping at his eyes as he looks at the now empty dining room.

“Hux.” Ren is still unable to bring his voice above a whisper. “Why did you want to kill me?”

Hux looks at Ren with what can only be described as pity, his sad pale eyes run glassy with tears. “Because,” he says, “when you are alone, not knowing how much longer you have in this place, it’s becomes awfully terrifying.”

Arms open beneath Hux, willingly welcoming him. He falls into them.

Hux curls over Ren’s body, holding him as they lie on the floor in the sound of the rain that whispers what can never be said.

 

 

 


	7. Monday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear to god and all 12 of his minions i didnt listen to 'i got you' on repeat while editing this

As a kid, Ren would often get sick. In the middle of the night he would get up, dozy with a fever or a headache, and got complain to his mom. She would be tired, having only gone to bed an hour prior after clicking out paperwork on the clunky computer she kept in her office. But she wouldn’t complain.

After checking Ren’s temperature and deciding it’s not too serious, Leia would let him sleep between her and Han. In the morning, Ren would wake up in the centre of the huge bed, washed by the bright spill of the dawn light. Caught in a cocoon of safety, he would sleep there, in the fluffy white sheets, until mom or dad came back from work.

It’s the same warmth of comfort and safety that Ren feels when he wakes up in the guest room on top of the sheets in the light of a summer morning. He has his arms and legs curled toward himself, taking up as little of the bed as possible, like he can pretend to be that kid again.

Ren knows that no matter for how long he keeps his eyes closed, willing himself to dream, he won’t be able to sleep anymore. But he is just as happy to lie there for the rest of the day and watch the light catch on Hux. He sleeps with his alabaster arms covering his face, bare feet poking out from the hems of his rumpled trousers.

The man looks no less alive than Ren: flesh and bone, concealing a beating heart. But Ren is too aware that Hux could blink out in the shadows if just given a reason.

The previous evening, after spending a good hour on the floor getting a crick in his neck, Ren muttered to Hux that he needs to get up or his stomach will eat itself. Hearing the prominent growl coming from Ren’s gut, Hux instantly got up, muttering apologies.

Ren found it peculiar how Hux switched between something that wants to eat Ren alive, licking the bones clean, and a slightly awkward mumbling man who putters around the kitchen, trying to find something that hasn’t expired. Hux spent about ten minutes dumping things into the trash, muttering about Ren being useless at managing the house, before cooking him dinner.

Afterwards, when Ren went to sleep in the guest room, flopping down on top of the covers, he was surprised to wake in the middle of the night to find Hux sleeping beside him. It's like a perfect replica of sleep, accompanied by the unconscious twitches and noises of half formed words.

Ren spent a while just watching Hux, trying to reassure himself that the man isn’t _actually_ there. The oddness of Hux’s physical presence sends Ren’s head reeling. But perhaps he can be excused for his ogling, considering the situation itself.

Hux turns in his sleep, belly up, feet pushing against the covers as he groans. His arms rise above his head as he stretches and Ren watching as Hux’s hair falls from his face, revealing his scrunched up nose and grimacing lips. Joints pop in Hux’s back and he sighs, falling limp on the bed.

“You are so rude,” mutters Hux. His eyes are still closed.

“Huh?” Ren frowns.

“You stare and ask rude questions. I should show such a terrible guest the door.” Hux turns onto his side, hands pillowing his head. He opens his sleepy puffy eyes. “But I was always bad at throwing out strays.”

Then, a moment later, a quiet “Can I come closer?”

They have made their peace. They have seen each other in paper fragile states. There has been forgiveness. Not quite forgetting.

“’Course.”

Hux shifts across the bed. His shirt stretches taut over his chest as it bunches on his back. He rests his face on a palm, the other tucked underneath his jaw.

“What’s it like, to live like this?” Ren asks in half a whisper.

Hux considers, looking away. Ren can hear bare feet rub against each other.

“Imagine living in your home, tending to It, cleaning it, and suddenly people move into it,” Hux says. “They are like guests, except you can’t close the door on them. Not unless you are very angry. And they keep coming because there is no lock to keep them out.”

He falls silent and Ren thinks that Hux won’t speak again, but then, “Imagine these people stripping the house of what it was. You can’t ask them to stop and you just stay in the corners, where the shadows are deep, because you can’t leave either.”

Hux looks up at Ren. He doesn’t appear upset; he has already accepted this. “It’s so awfully lonely, Ren.”

Words tumble out of Ren’s mouth before he can stop them, “If I lived here, there would be music, always.” He can’t halt the thoughts from rising up his throat and forming syllables. “I would teach you to play guitar and piano. And there would be white roses, like the ones I saw in your garden. And I would buy you a cat—”

Hux startles with a laugh. “A _cat_? Why a cat?”

Ren flushes. “I—I dunno. People say that cats can see stuff we can’t. They act weird, so if the neighbours see it playing with something that isn’t there they won’t think that it’s odd. It would keep you company and you wouldn’t be lonely.”

“That sounds lovely.” Hux smiles as Ren continues to stutter.

“Or not a cat, if you don’t like cats.” Flustered, Ren can’t stop himself from speaking. “Maybe a dog. Or a bir—”

Hux’s lips stop Ren from forming words. He struggles to swallow down his shock when he feels the smile pressed against his mouth.

Hux pulls back and reaches to stroke Ren’s cheek. “That sounds lovely, Ren. Thank you,” he whispers.

Ren lies there, mouth slack from the kiss. The words tumble past his lips before he understands what he is saying. “Can I kiss you again?”

Hux’s smile pulls a little wider and Ren isn’t even afraid when Hux pushes himself up on his forearms and leans over to kiss Ren firmly – pushing Ren onto his back. Hux falls onto Ren’s chest as he brings their lips together. There is no disconnection in the kiss, the pace slow enough for either of them to stop. Ren takes leisure in it, slowly opening Hux’s lips and tasting his tongue.

Without losing the kiss, Hux straddles Ren’s hips – placing no weight. The hesitance is gone when Ren grips Hux’s shirt and he buckles from the pull, dropping onto Ren, face against his neck. Hux snorts, curling against Ren as he shakes with aughter.

A stifled yelp is startled out of Ren when he feels a sharp bite punctured where Hux’s face is burrowed against his neck. The clamped jaw flexes as Hux adjusts his sprawl over Ren who buries a hand in the copper hair when wet kisses rise toward his jaw, encouraging Hux to keep going.

There is no leisure or patience when Hux begins to kiss Ren, but Ren grins into the bites that tug at his lips and licks into Hux’s mouth in turn. Hands yank at Ren’s t-shirt and he instantly complies by lifting his arms and letting Hux tug him free of the shirt.

Once done, Hux sits over Ren’s waist and looks down at him to observe the red marks of teeth on his neck and shoulders. Then, Hux’s hands set to his own shirt, ripping apart the buttons and exposing the pale alabaster skin. Ren grips the sheets, letting Hux do this at his own pace.

There is a fever bright flush high on Hux’s cheeks and his eyes are glassy underneath his fringe. He throws his shirt aside and crawls over Ren, arching his back when fingertips graze his spine.

“Has anyone ever made you feel so good you had cried?” Hux asks, the words dripping from his tongue like honey.

Dizzy from the attention, Ren shakes his head.

“Then I will have to fix that, won’t I?” Hux slips from under Ren’s hands with a grin.

Ren watches as Hux settles between his legs and leans forward to burrow his face against Ren’s bare thigh. He nuzzles like a kitten, sighing with a groan. Ren’s leg spasms when Hux presses closer to his groin, breath hot against his skin, lips nudging against the fabric of his underwear.

There is hunger in Hux’s eyes when he looks down at the prominent outline of Ren’s cock pressing through the cotton. There is a brief smile before Hux delves in. Hot, wet tongue curls over Ren’s cock, lapping, dripping with saliva.

Ren is deaf to his whimpers that steal out of his throat as Hux’s mouth over his dick, drawing wet patches of over the head. He has to retrain himself from bucking up and grinding against Hux’s mouth, as if doing so will dispel this tantalizing destruction of his composure. Ren can see how hard is becoming underneath Hux’s lips and pink tongue, eagerly responding to the slightest touch.

Fingers pry underneath the waistband and Ren hisses when the wet fabric catches on the wet head of his dick. The air chills the wet skin but Ren is not given a chance to feel the sting before the warm mouth is back on him. Hux continues to lap at Ren’s cock that lies against his stomach, splitting his attention between eating Ren up and ripping off the last scrap of fabric.

Once he is free, Ren legs are grabbed by the knees and pushed toward his chest as he scrambles not to fall in a jumble of limbs. Ren’s hands latch onto the headboard, fingers slipping when bruising bites are delivered on the softness of his thighs that squeeze around Hux’s head with every scrape of his teeth.

Though Hux looks slight enough for a stiff breeze to tip him over, he is able to hold Ren up by his hips as he bites his ass. Teeth mould into the thickness of the meat, saliva drips down the curve of Ren’s ass toward his back. Then, the flat of Hux’s tongue brushes over the mark, lapping as he slowly travels up.

Ren sucks in a breath when he feels hot breath burn against his perineum. He doesn’t even have it in him to feel embarrassed, being so bared underneath Hux. Instead, he moans and clutches the headboard with his white knuckled fingers when Hux presses in between his thighs, lips to his entrance.

Hux’s hands tense on Ren’s hips, nails biting into the skin, when his legs spasm from the feeling of a wet tongue catching against his hole. Straining to lift his head, Ren can see the way Hux closes his eyes in reverence as he licks from his entrance toward his flushed cock.

Little bites on the softness of Ren’s thighs coax his skin into an array of pinks and reds. Gradually, Hux becomes sated of the bites and begins to work his attention to licking Ren open, slowly pressing his tongue inside him and pulling away – soothing him with the broad strokes of his tongue.

Ren gasps under the gentle torture, pressing back into Hux’s hands. He squeezes his eyes shut, legs trembling, when he finally feels the forceful press of Hux’s tongue inside him.

“Oh—F-Fu—!” Ren slaps his hands over his mouth as he screams, curling in on himself. He can feel Hux’s lips press against his entrance as his tongue is shoved inside, slicked with saliva that drips down Ren’s back. “Shit, shit—!” Ren heaves like a mantra as his hands fall to the pillows, fisting the fabric.

Hux pulls out his tongue and offers a filthy kiss to Ren’s ass. He changes his grip on Ren’s body, taking one of his legs by the knee, pressing the other hand over the tailbone. This way, when Hux begins to tease Ren again, making him shiver and moan when he finds his prostate, Hux is able to slide a finger in below his tongue.

Ren almost slams a leg into his own face with the tremors and spasms that pass through him with every drag of Hux’s tongue. He hiccups with gasps when he feels Hux’s knuckles press up against his ass, squelching with viscous saliva. Ren is forced to bite on his fingers to stop his wails and sobs.

Hux’s tongue slips out and he gives a happy sigh, nuzzling Ren’s inner thigh. Continuing to slowly finger him, massaging his prostate, Hux begins to press a second finger inside Ren.

“I could have never dreamt of anything prettier lying in my bed,” Hux whispers with a sly grin and Ren goes red in the face underneath his hands.

Lowered to Hux’s lap, a second finger is pushed inside Ren – the resistance of his body trying to push him out with only spit to ease the way. Hux leans forward to taste the whimpers on Ren’s tongue when he feels fingers stretch him open.

It’s filthy, the way they cling to each other like animals, uncaring where their hands and mouths have been. But Ren eats up the taste on Hux’s tongue, licking at his smirk. Their kiss is broken when Hux rubs his fingers over Ren’s prostate, pace leisurely like dripping molten gold, striking the burning sensation that has Ren sobbing.

Hux kisses Ren’s neck and shoulder, holding a leg by the knee against Ren's chest. Fingers squelch, saliva slick, in tandem with Ren’s heavy breathing as Hux milks pleasure out of his spasming body.

“O-Oh shi—it!” Ren yells and his back arches off the mattress. It’s all breaching onto pain but Hux does not stop. If anything, his fingers shove rougher, deeper, and the drags against Ren’s insides burn.

Hux’s hand in Ren’s knee tightens. He bows over Ren’s body and bites into his neck as he thrusts his fingers against Ren’s prostate.

Ren cries as if in pain. His body throbs, pulsing with rushing blood. He is too dazed to notice that his cock still stands rigid and red, wet with precome, even after he has come down from his high.

Limp like a discarded toy, Ren lies on the mattress where Hux has dropped him to crawl down and swallow around his cock. Ren hisses with a wince. A leg falls onto Hux’s shoulder as he laps and swallows around Ren’s dick, moaning as he shoves down until he gags.

Tears are beginning to drip down Ren’s cheek as he bites into his bloodied bottom lip. It’s far, far too much and Ren is broken between pushing Hux away and chasing the feeling of his eager mouth.

A hand clasps on the base of Ren’s cock, squeezing as Hux hollows his cheeks and pulls up. Ren shouts, unable to stop as he pushes up and comes with pulses that milk him dry.

Afterwards, when Hux calls his name, it’s too much of a task for Ren to shape words. So, he lies there, panting, uselessly dazed.

A grunt if forced out of Ren when a warm body drops over him. He cracks open an eye and sees the ginger scruff of Hux’s hair pressed against his collarbone. He lies lax, like a blanket trying to keep Ren warm.

Cautiously, Ren places his hands on Hux’s back, covering the skinny ribs and protruding spine.

 

“Does it always rain so much?”

“Not always, the sun has to come out eventually.”

“You know what I mean.”

Hux shrugs. “It’s always a swamp. One moment there is rain like someone has tipped a bucket and the next there is sunshine and not a whiff of a cloud.”

The rainfall has only just begun to ebb. Ren watches the sun dance on the living room ceiling, throwing shadows of the window panes.

It’s evening and Ren has only just managed to dress and drag himself downstairs only to drop on the carpet. Hux sits in the armchair above him, his bare feet nudge Ren’s side.

“I didn’t think I would say this, but, I will miss this place,” Ren mutters.

The feet that tipped Ren from side to side fud against the floor. “And what on earth do you mean by that?”

“It’s Monday, isn’t it? That means tomorrow I’m leaving.” Ren covers his eyes with an arm.

“Ren, I don’t understand.”

Ren doesn’t like Hux’s tone. He turns onto his side, away from Hux. “I told you. It’s not like I can live here. I had a week. It doesn’t belong to me.”

The floorboards shudder with footsteps that cross over Ren. He opens his eyes as Hux leaves the room, head bowed and shoulders hunched.

“Hux?” Ren calls out, standing from the floor. His back aches from lying for so long and vision swims.

Bare feet patter up the steps.

“Hux!”

Ren skids across the floor, catching himself on the doorframe as he sprints toward the staircase. Hux is ahead of him, turning down a hall of closed doors.

Taking the steps two at a time, Ren finds himself panting at the top of the stairs. “Hux, wait up!” he calls after the storming figure.

Hux is almost within reach when Ren runs after him, going to grab his arm. “Please, wait!” But he is thrown into a wall when Hux snaps away from his clutching hand.

“Don’t you dare touch me, liar!” shouts Hux. His voice is raw, like he is holding onto the last of his sense.

“What—?” Ren pushes away from the wall, numb to the hurt. “I—” He cuts himself short.

Hux stands against the opposing wall, hands fisted, his face in a scowl and eyes strung red with tears. Somehow, it seems like colour has been washed from his skin.

“Hux, I never—” Ren tries, reaching toward him, but Hux flinches away. “I never—”

“Is it the money?” Hux demands.

Ren says nothing; he is lost and he doesn’t understand what is going on – what he has done wrong?

“Is it because of the money?” Hux steps forward. Ren can see the bruises and broken veins under his eyes. The edges of his mouth have bloomed with red, lips cracked and purpled. There is desperation edging into Hux’s voice, overtaking the anger.

“Hux, please, I don’t understand—”

Fingers with blackened nails dig into Ren’s biceps, biting with cold. This time, it’s Ren who flinches.

“If it’s money you need, there is cash buried in the foundations,” Hux insists. His grip tightens, twisting Ren’s skin. “There are suitcases. I placed them myself.”

“I don’t want your money,” Ren says as horror creeps into his mind when bruises bloom over Hux’s skin before his eyes. The hallway darkens around them as if clouds have casted over the sun.

“Then what is it!” Hux slams Ren into the wall, crowding around him, searching his face with bloodshot eyes. “Is it the woman who bought this house? I could get rid of her for you. I could make her go away.”

“No.” Ren struggles against the cold hands that hold onto him. He can’t bear to look at Hux.

“Is there someone else? Is there someone you love? There won’t be anyone better than me. You _know_ it.”

“No, it’s no—”

“Then what is it! What do you want me to do to make you stay?”

“Nothing,” Ren grits out. “I don’t want anything from you. I don’t want to stay in this fucking house, I never wanted to!”

The hands that held Ren fall slack. Ren braces for an attack, but, after counting out the moments, he looks up.

It’s like the body on the photograph, the thing that looks at Ren with milky eyes in a swallow of black bruising – just the eyes that stared at Ren from the doorway the first time he was confronted by the ghost. But now, in daylight, he can see the sickly green-white of the skin, bloated and tinged by heavy purples.

There is a _drip drip_ and Ren realises that Hux is soaked: his hair, stringy and dark, sticks to his skull, his shirt is near translucent from the water that it has gathered. On the floor, the pool of lake water grows.

“What the—”

Hux’s face crumbles. Fat, ugly tears swell up in his sunken eyes and a cry bursts from his throat. Hands with torn knuckles and chipped nails cover Hux’s face as he sinks to the floor with a mute scream.

Guilt slams onto Ren; the words were a lie. He should explain himself, but Ren is too afraid to approach Hux. He is volatile, losing sense of who he is as he reverts to the corpse that was dragged out of the lake almost a century ago. He is frightened, but Ren knows that he as to do something.

“Hux?” Ren reaches toward the crumpled figure on the floor. “I’m—I’m sorry.” His hand falls onto a skinny shoulder, cold like stone. “I—”

“Don’t touch me!” Hux screams, throwing Ren aside as he stumbles to his feet. Water rolls off Hux in streams. “Don’t you ever touch me again, you monster!”

Hux lunges down the corridor, leaving Ren behind in his confused terror. But he doesn’t make it five paces before he halts and covers his chest with his hands. Then, without a heave, water spills from Hux’s mouth. It pours in rivulets, sloshing onto the floor as Hux stares at the growing puddle in numb shock.

“Hux?”

His eyes bulge and throat constricts. A gush of water pours from his bruised lips.

“What’s wrong?” Ren steps forward – now afraid more for Hux than himself. “What is happening to you?”

The wide pale eyes stare at Ren as water continues to dribble over Hux’s chin – teeth clench, jaw tense. Hux twits his ashen fingers in the sodden shirt as a whine permeates through the house, sharp like the groan of the foundation settling in winter.

Ren stumbles when he realises that the sound had come from Hux.

Turning away, Hux bows over and water splashes over the floor. He whines and stands straight, before marching through the hallway, hands fisted.

Past the staircases Hux flees, to the opposing side of the house where a door is ripped open and slammed on his heels.

Ren follows the trails of cold water, wringing open the door where Hux disappeared. He calls into the room as he steps through.

Sheets rustle on the empty desk. The window is open and yellow evening light falls through.

 

 

 


	8. Tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [☜(˚▽˚)☞](https://open.spotify.com/user/blessedbytheash/playlist/5MOGblsr99IfL98716pXWX)

They sit on the living room floor, listening to music on Tahani's phone as they eat donuts and lick sugar off their fingers. Today, Tahani's hair is wrapped around her head in a thick braid and her burgundy frown stains the lip of a paper cup.

She arrived in the morning with a sweet smelling paper bag thrusted out toward Ren who stood in the threshold dressed in sweat tacky pyjamas. While Ren slurped down the coffee, Tahani cleared the kitchen, gathering week old groceries into trash bags. She told Ren about her grandmother as she worked: she will be out of hospital tomorrow morning – everything is alright.

When Tahani went upstairs to check through the rooms, Ren worried that she would find the water-logged patches on the carpets that he didn’t manage to dry. But she came down with coiled wires and guitar cases, telling him as she takes the keys, “I’ll put these in your car.”

Ren finishes his breakfast before heading off to pack. Tahani follows him and stands in the doorway as he digs for lost pieces of clothing, shoving them into the bags in scrunched wads. Tahani grimaces as she watches.

Tripping on the cord of the amp Ren managed to shove under his arm, they stumble downstairs with the bags.

“—So, Sumaya is dropping her major which means she will be moving out of the dormitories,” Tahani explains as she follows Ren through the foyer.

“Uh-huh.” Ren opens the front door with his elbow. Bags slam into the timber.

“She isn’t leaving the city; she has a job offer standing. Figure she’ll need a housemate before she decides what she wants to do next.”

The gravel crunches under their feet and the car buckles with the added weight of the dumped bags.

“You think we could split a contract?”

“I don’t see why not. You have a job waiting and just need a place to stay. You’ve met her, right?”

“All I remember is a smudge called ‘Sama-iah’ or ‘Sum-eya’. It was someone’s birthday party.”

Tahani looks at the dusty bags stuffed into the car boot that has been lined with old towels. “Right,” she says.

Ren closes the boot and walks toward the driver’s seat with keys spinning around his finger. He reaches to open the door when he hears the faint notes of a trombone reach from the house.

In a sudden fall of silence, Ren listens to the peaking strikes of a cello. It’s faint, but the instruments rise like a thunderstorm in the quiet forest grove by the lake.

Ren looks to Tahani who is inspecting the tires of her pickup truck. “Tahani?” he calls out.

She looks up, frowning at the confusion on Ren’s face. “Yeah?”

She doesn’t seem to notice the music. It’s growing louder, swooping into a low tremble that reaches Ren’s bones. How can’t she hear it?”

“What is it?” Tahani asks.

“I—I—” Ren’s mouth flaps uselessly until his teeth click together and the lie falls in place. “I think I’ve forgotten something,” he says.

“Yeah? What is it?”

“I dunno. Just got that feeling, you know?” The look on Tahani’s face says she doesn’t but Ren isn’t paying attention as he runs toward the front door of the mansion. “I’ll be a moment,” he calls over his shoulder.

Through the hallway and up the staircase. Ren is not afraid to approach the source of the music; the only thing he feels is excitement.

The stairs into the attic are lowered, but it’s not darkness that waits for Ren: sun spills through the window, casting long shadows from the rafters.

The ladder rattles under Ren’s feet as he climbs through into the dust whirled space of the attic. Music falls over him like a cloud of warm air and Ren smiles when he sees the gramophone sitting in a patch of light. Beside it, a figure is slumped on the floor, head hanging between the shoulders as hands fisted in the ginger hair – struck gold by the light.

Ren walks softly on the creaking floor and sits at a distance from Hux. The vinyl disk record hobbles and pops as it spins under the needle. The golden horn, untouched by age, glows like molten ore.

“You know,” says Ren when a new song starts, “it was jazz that got me into learning to play. My grandfather always insisted on listening to his records day and night before he died. It drove granny mad. But it gave him peace and she learned to live with it. For him."

“She sounds like a wonderful person,” Hux says softly, though his voice is hoarse.

“Yeah, she was.”

Ren turns when he sees Hux shift from the corner of his eye. He is looking back at Ren. There are no more bruises on his pale face except the ones that sit in the sockets of his eyes. His hair is a mess, like he has been running his hands through it too many times.

Something aches in Ren’s chest when he sees a smile that tries to reach the pale eyes.

He smiles in return.

“You are leaving.”

“Yeah.”

“I will miss you.”

Heat creeps to Ren’s face, stinging his eyes. He doesn’t want to cry. “I will miss you too.”

Hux looks away. Eyes fix to his fidgeting hands – thumbs rub the red knuckles like there is dirt to be scrubbed away.

“I am sorry for what I said to you,” Hux says.

“I’m sorry too.”

“No.” Hux looks up, his sad eyes filled with desperation for Ren to understand. “No, I’m not angry for what you said. You had every right to say it. I am sorry for behaving the way that I did because my mind twisted what I heard. It happens, sometimes. I can’t control it.”

Ren doesn’t understand what he is being told, but he listens anyway.

“Sometimes, something happens inside my mind and it is as if I am fixed in the moment just before my death. The same feelings go through my head: anger, hatred, _need_.” Hux scratches his fingernails across the floorboards, tracing lines through the dust. “I lose myself and all control that I had.”

Hux looks up cautiously. “That’s why I tried to kill you. I was fixed on you with all those things driving my actions. Whenever my mind cleared, I realised my mistake and I felt such terrible guilt. I don’t want to keep you here, not against your will. I want to see you filled with happiness. But that doesn’t mean possessing you or even that I give you this happiness.”

Hux raises his hands and scrubs at his eyes. Ren can see that he is struggling to keep his breathing even.

“I know it sounds monstrous,” Hux hiccups against his hands. “Who would want to do such a thing—”

Ren leans forward and places his head on Hux’s shoulder, laying a hand on the base of his neck as he shushes him, “It’s okay, thank you for telling me.” He feels Hux shudder as he rubs the protruding bumps of his spine with his thumb. “You didn’t want to do it. I’m not angry. I forgive you.” Ren turns and sighs against bony shoulder as the tremors become violent.

That’s when Hux turns and cling onto Ren, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and neck. Ren holds him until the sobs subside and Hux leans away. His eyes are red, but he looks alive and his skin is warm under Ren’s hands.

Hux forces out long, steady breaths and escapes from Ren’s hands. “I won’t keep you any longer.” He reaches for something beside the gramophone as the record crackles through the last song. “But I have something for you.”

A small dark wooden box is presented to Ren. Tied to it with a white silk ribbon is an envelope, filled out by card and the outline a small key.

“I want you to have this,” Hux tells Ren. “These memories I admit lack taste, but they are the ones that I cherish.” When he sees Ren hesitate, he adds, “But, if you don’t want it, I understand—”

Ren grabs Hux’s over the box and leans toward him to place a kiss on his lips that silences the trembling doubts. Hux almost falls, chasing the touch and its naïve innocence.

“Thank you,” Ren whispers against Hux’s lips.

Kissing Ren once more, Hux smiles and says, “If you ever decide to return, you are _always_ welcome.”

The sound of the front door slamming shatters the quiet.

“Ren!” Tahani shouts downstairs. “Where the fuck are you!”

Ren jumps to his feet and scrambles toward the hatch. “I almost done! Just give me a minute!”

There is a pause. “Alright!” Tahani replies.

Ren turns to say goodbye to Hux but when he looks, neither the gramophone nor Hux are in the attic. Only boxes and chests stand under the strips of white cloth like ghosts, gathering the swirls of dust motes.

 

 

 


	9. July 2nd 1927 (Interlude)

Neglect it  
Criticize it to its face  
Say how it kills the light  
Traps all the rubbish  
Bores you with its green

Continually  
Harden your heart  
Then  
Cut it down close  
To the root as possible

Forget it  
For a week or a month  
Return with an axe  
Split it with one blow  
Insert a stone

To keep the wound wide open _._

_— How to Kill a Living thing_ , Eibhlin Nic Eochaidh

 

* * *

 

The boat rocks in the shallows of the lake's dock, its shadow sitting like a creature from the blurry tabloids waiting to creep out. The empty jars of moonshine glisten between the oars in the light of the house. Hux flicks the ashes of his cigarette to join the peeling flakes of baby blue paint in the boat’s belly.

There is a part of Hux’s mind that tells him he needs to get fucked raw – until its hurts to close his legs, until he is so worn out he can’t help but feel aroused. Another part tells him to go into the downstairs lounge, put on a record, lie across the carpets and brush his palms over the fabric until they are numb.

The cigarette embers burn Hux’s fingers and he hisses. The stub is thrown into the water where it fizzles out. Hux releases the last breath of smoke as he reaches for the silver cigarette case in the back pocket of his slacks.

A paper roll is stuffed between cracked lips. A match spits to life. The charred chip of wood is flicked into the water after the stub. Hux leans back, swaying on the balls of his feet, free hand fisted in the loose ends of his undone tie. Bloodshot eyes watch the pinpricks of stars peer through the torn strips of clouds.

When he lived in the city under the tide of industry’s smog, Hux would often drive an hour out from the city lights to sit in the darkness and watch the passing stars. Phasma laughed once she heard about this. She called him a romantic: a rich boy spending his time fantasizing while others work until their bodies give out.

His father said the same words when he found Hux sitting with a book by a candle past bedtime.

A door shuts. Hux looks over his shoulder. The lake house stands tall and bright. It must’ve been Annie; Hux sent the maid away early, telling her that she won’t be needed. She stayed anyway.

When Hux listens, he can hear the faint notes of the record Phasma left to play before Hux shoved her out of the door. She lingered after the others, insisting to stay the night with Hux.

He feels guilty now. Phasma was only attempting her best to help. The uncertainty in her kind words was so painful to watch; even she isn’t used to tenderness. But Hux couldn’t let her quiet down the rage.

No. He needs to fuel the fire until it burns him. Until he is forced into the water. Until his body gives out.

The lake glistens like tar under the lights. The used to be lanterns on the dock for late summer night meals and drinks so sweet they made mouths gummy with sugar. The metal poles now stand in rusting vigil, useless for anything other than perching birds and hanging a suit jacket. 

Hux yanks off his tie. The fabric burns his neck through the collar of his shirt and hits like a whip.

The clothes on Hux’s back began to ache like stone through a day of meetings and signings of legal documents that track the transfers of assets. The men on the other side of the desk, shrivelled and bald, watched Hux like butchers assessing a new slab of meat on the counter.

They were the types of men that should they been his father’s rivals, Hux wouldn’t have wasted a moment before getting down on his knees before them. It is disgusting, he knows, and it made Hux’s skin itch every time he did it in the past. But it had always been worth it to simply see his father’s fury the moment he realised why these men can’t look him in the eye without turning beet red.

Hux holds the cigarette before his eyes, watching it become eaten down to a stub by a cherry of light. His skin feels like it has been itched red. He won’t be satisfied until it has been flayed.

Hux wishes that he had spat onto the casket as it was lowered into the ground. He wishes he had broken those yellowing teeth as they clacked with laughter.

The cigarette falls onto the nailed boards of the dock.

That man died with laughter in his belly knowing full well that he lashed his son into a bitter pawn that will continue his legacy long after his body has decayed.

Rebellion: Just another part of the plan.

Hux can’t let it end this way.

The anger that sits lodged in his throat is the type that can’t be fucked out of place no matter how many cocks have been shoved into his mouth. It can’t be aided by a swallow of a burning drink to swim up his throat and into the bowl of a toilet.

One last rebellion: to spit on the cross, the striped banner and the family pride that sits in a suitcase of green.

Hux shoves his hands into the pockets of his slacks. His hair falls limp over his eyes as he looks to the house.

He should write a letter first. Isn’t that what people do?

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyone remember that scene from the first time ren saw hux? that's moments after this if he ever came home


	10. December 22nd 2016 (Epilogue)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wash my hands of this trash

_5 years later_

 

“Are you sure you want her? She is one of our ‘problem children’. I’m just warning you.”

Ren looks into the carrier on the reception desk where a clump mottled orange fur is pressed against the back panel. Wild eyes flash green back at him.

“I’m sure I’ll manage to work something out with her,” Ren sighs. The cat hisses; seems she doesn’t agree. Ren looks up at Poe who is still frowning. “I’ve had worse than a cat with trust issues,” reassures Ren.

Poe shrugs. “Well, you might want to know that we’ve been calling her ‘Millicent’. Not ‘Maleficent’. _Millicent_. It means something like ‘work’ because someone thought it would be funny considering how much work she is to get adopted.”

“Huh.” Ren looks at the cat again, striped by the florescent white light falling through the gaps in the carrier. “Millicent.” He smiles. “Guess it’s your lucky day.”

The cat hisses and digs into the shredded old clothes that have been placed inside for bedding.

“Finn is so not going to miss her,” Poe says as he scrolls through the documents on the reception computer. “You know the big scar he has down his forearm?”

“Yeah?”

Poe nods toward the carrier.

“I thought a dog did that.”

“That’s what he tells everyone.”

 

Outside, the ground is crusted by weeks-worth of snow, melted by the winter sun and refrozen during the frigid nights. Ren watches the tiny snowflakes drift under the orange streetlights that come to settle on the ice that covers the lined tarmac of the parking lot. The wind is picking up and, Ren knows, so will the snow.

Quickly, Ren trudges over the ice from the doors of the animal shelter toward his car – the only left except for the cars of the staff who are on the clock.

The cat rumbles when Ren places the carrier on the passenger seat. She tries to settle as Ren sits behind the wheel and turns the ignition key. The moment Millicent gets comfortable she is thrown into the back panel of the carrier when the car jerks off the spot and begins to roll over the ice and snow.

The suburbs pass in murky winter darkness, split by spells of glowing windows and streetlamps. The snow flurry catches in the intermediate lights and the suburbs melt into the opens fields.

The falling snow is static in the headlights as equipment rattles in the boot of the car, thumping with every bump of the frozen road. The cat keeps circling in her cramped carrier, uselessly trying to make herself comfortable.

A line of trees becomes visible, a black strip over the white casted fields. Ren sees flickers of light peek between the trees as he passes through the forest line: festive decorations plastered on the windows of mansions, gaudy silhouettes and slogans.

The wind groans in the canopies of the oaks and pines. But it’s a distant concern when thick groves of trees stand between the whipping blows of the storm and the passing car in the darkness.

Ren turns down a grit road that hides behind snow powdered shrubs, marked only by the lack of grass. Easing down the road, Ren leans forward in his seat to watch for the ice under the light of the headlamps.

The frantic windscreen wipers clear the snow that falls past the receding trees and cloys the glass. Headlamps flash over the frozen lake that lies behind a sprawl of a snowy garden with gnarled patches of cut rose stems around the snow crusted birdbath.

Light touches the windows of the ivy swallowed red brick building that sleeps under layers of frost. There is already light burning behind the curtains.

Ren parks the car, grabs the cat carrier and quickly dashes outside, leaning against the snow and wind while covering up as much of the carrier as possible from the worst of it as he runs toward the front door of his home.

Ren runs up the patio and pushes against the snow coated timber of the door. The lock clicks and he falls through, trailing snow crumbs through the hallway. The storm is silenced with the turn of a key and Ren sighs in the warmth of the house; seems the fireplace has been lit the entire afternoon to thaw the rooms.

“Ren?”

“Yeah?” he calls back, setting down the carrier to take off his sodden parka.

“Did something happen at the studio?”

“No, everything is alright.” Ren hangs up the coat, telling himself that he’ll dry it later, knowing that he will forget all about it in a few moments. “Just thought I would get back earlier.” A puddle is growing around his boots where they stand beside the door.

Ren picks up the carrier and walks into the living room. The smell of wood smoke has drenched the space, urging forward Ren’s memories of his first Christmas in this house. There aren’t many decorations except for the garlands and candles that weren’t really his choice but likes anyway.

“Well, don’t be surprised when I tell you dinner is not finished.”

Something clatters in the kitchen, muffled by the distance of the dining room, and the slaps of footsteps reach Ren. He sets down the carrier with the fidgety cat, his clammy fingers slip on the plastic handle.

“Are you sure everything is okay? You sound a little o—” Hux’s mouth snaps shut the moment he walks into the living room.

Ren can’t help smiling; Hux is dressed in a knitted sweater with a pattern of snowflakes and small pine trees on a backdrop of blue, the red flannel pyjama pants swallow over his socket feet – the toes peek only just. There is a healthy look on Hux’s face: his eyes are bright and cheeks full of colour.

He covers his mouth with his fingertips as he mutters a small “Oh.” He shuffles a little closer to look inside the carrier. “What is it?”

“Her name is Millicent,” Ren tells him. “She lived in the animal shelter and I thought we should give her a home.” He watches Hux come closer, slowly kneeling on the floor in front of the carrier. “Since the house is too big for just us two,” Ren adds.

Hux reaches out and unlatches the front panel. The cat hisses but it doesn’t phase Hux as he coos, “Hey there darling. Don’t worry, we aren’t going to touch you.” He looks up at Ren. “I don’t suppose you also bought food for her.”

Ren curses. “I left it in the car. Want me to get it?”

“No, it’s fine. I will work something out with the leftovers. I don’t think she is an eating mood anyhow.”

The cat spits and the carrier rattles.

“Alright, alright. We’ll leave you be, sweetheart,” Hux tells the cat and stands. He walks around the carrier toward Ren and pushes himself on his toes to offer him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m glad to see you home.”

“Yeah, the storm is really hitting hard out there.” Ren can feel his face turn a festive shade of red. Then, he suddenly blurts, “Look, I’m sorry for not telling you about the cat. I wanted to surprise you, but if you don’t like her, maybe we could work som—”

Hux’s stops Ren’s blubbering by taking his face between his hands and giving him a firm kiss on the lips. His hands twist in Ren’s snow damp hair as bites his lip.

Ren’s mind melts into a puddle of goo and he leans after Hux who is walking away with laughter on his lips.

They go into the kitchen, letting the cat leave the carrier at her own pace.

In the meanwhile, Ren helps Hux finish cooking. It’s only a meal for one and while Ren eats, Hux sits adjacent with a laptop. He has to use a computer mouse since touchpads don’t agree with him (hence why he doesn’t own a modern phone) and he has to make some compromises that allow him to occupy himself with while he sits with Ren.

They talk to make up for the hours spent apart. Ren tells Hux about the progress in the studio, about the setbacks and the antics (the three years Ren spent on gaining his qualification in sound engineering are proving themselves, even though Ren winces when he thinks about his debts). In turn, Hux tells him about the progress he made restoring the house and the garden.

Yesterday, they spent the evening rearranging Ren’s guitars and basses on their hooks, placing new additions in the gaps and twining tinsel and strings of Christmas lights around them. At the end of it, Hux stood back with a pleased smirk on his face.

Sometimes, Ren thinks that Hux likes the instruments more than he does. It’s the reason why he tried to teach Hux to play. But after many trials, changing from bass to guitar, from acoustic to electric, they accepted their defeat. Hux admitted that Phasma had tried to teach him the grand piano that once stood in her city apartment, but the results were the same.

It’s odd since Hux has such ease with rhythm; he can dance, pulling Ren along to the swaying steps as if there is nothing to it. But he just can’t get the hang of all the chords and the strumming patterns, getting frustrated within moments.

It’s actually sweet, watching Hux put so much effort into something so mundane. Ren makes sure to fix every moment into memory and he can’t help his lopsided smiles when he picks up one of his guitars while working in the studio. The memories surge back of Hux sat with his legs crossed on the floor, bare feet sticking out and back hunched as he struggles through the chord changes.

While Ren is working, travelling between different cities and spending hours in meetings, Hux remains home. He doesn’t mind too much; Hux tells Ren that he is happy finally being able to reclaim his home – making it feel his again after decades of watching people try to make something it isn’t.

Hux accepts that Ren must go away often to earn the money that allows him to live at the lake house. He accepts that Ren gets restless and that he has yet a life to live. Hux doesn’t try to keep him against his will and Ren never second guesses his choice to move into this house two years ago after it was vacated.

It isn’t perfect. Hux has his moments when he loses himself, when he is frustrated and scared. Ren isn’t any better; sometimes he loses his patience and gets angry. They have their moments when they scream into each other’s face and can’t stand to be in the same space.

But those are only moments. They forgive each other and work to accommodate each other’s needs. Whether that is for Ren to spend more time with Hux, wandering the grounds of the lake house, or for Hux to indulge Ren by exploring music and spending hours on the phone with him when they are apart. Because, above all, it’s love that keeps them here.

 

 

 

Ren is loading the plates and cutlery into the dishwasher. Music is faintly playing from the laptop as Hux scrolls through scanned pages of a book. Ren listens to the notes merge with the rustles of clothing as Hux shifts on the chair.

Hux sighs and reads, “ _’Even good matrons know all too well and do not gladly see a tiny cock’_.”

“What?” asks Ren, digging his thumb into the buttons of the dishwasher.

“A quote in Montaigne’s essay,” Hux mumbles. “Quite the revolutionary for his time, I would say.” Hux pauses. The music mutes. “Do you hear anything?”

The dishwasher begins to hum and the snowstorm howls against the latched kitchen windows behind the curtains. Other than that, it’s silent.

“No, it’s really quiet.”

“Exactly.”

Ren turns as Hux gets up from behind the table and walks toward the living room. Ren follows.

The carrier sits in the light of the fireplace. The strips of bedding have been dragged out onto the floor. The cat is not inside.

“Millie?” Hux calls out.

“She’s gone?”

“I suppose she went to search for shelter the moment we left the room.” Hux looks between the cabinets, softly calling for the lost cat.

“Shouldn’t we check upstairs?” Ren asks as he follows suit, climbing over the couch and looking behind the curtains.

“No, she wouldn’t have gone that far. She would be too afraid.” Hux goes to look in the dining room, ducking to look under the table.

“How do you know?”

“Well, Millie isn’t the first stray case I held in this house, if you should know.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes, Dopheld used to find stray cats and, having a soft heart, he would bring them home. But you see, he lived in a city apartment and his fiancé was allergic to the creatures.” Hux turns to glance into the sunroom, checking under the bamboo framed couches neither of them found the time to throw out. “So, he passed them to me. But I never had the time for them so I gave them to better hands as soon as I could.”

“How noble,” Ren mutters. He stands beside the couch in resignation. “Are your special cat skills going to tell us where to find Millicent?”

But apparently there is no needs because Ren feels a little tap on his ankle and then, like puncturing needles, something jabs into the skin.

Ren squeals and jumps away from the couch. He turns just in time to see a small orange and white paw disappear underneath the couch.

A croaking sound makes Ren spin around to the doorway of the dining room. Leaning against the frame, Hux is struggling to hold back his laughter. His face is red and cheeks round with a smile hidden behind his hands.

“You’d think I’d be used to this shit by now,” Ren grumbles and looks down at his injured leg. It only makes Hux cackle harder as he slides down toward the floor in a fit of giggles.

“It’s not funny!” Ren protests but screams when tapped for a second time by the orange paw.

There is a sputter of unintelligible syllables and more laughter. Some of it is Ren’s.

 

 

 

 


End file.
